


Simple Truths

by tzzzz



Category: Captain America (2011), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Backstory, Bullying, Childhood, Dubious Consent, F/M, Flirting, Historical fiction of dubious accuracy, Hurt/Comfort, Interracial Relationship, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mpreg, Orphanage, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Racism, Rejection, Sexism, Transgender, Underage Kissing, Underage expirmentation, infidelity (minor)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-17
Updated: 2013-01-28
Packaged: 2017-11-10 04:13:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 53,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/462087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tzzzz/pseuds/tzzzz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky Barnes doesn't care if he differentiates as alpha or omega so long as he has Steve by his side.  Steve Rogers has always known he's an alpha and no one can tell him otherwise, not even his own body.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Our Lady of Mercy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky is the new kid at the orphanage. Steve takes him under his wing.

Bucky would forever remember the day he first met Steve Rogers. 

Bucky had been at the State Orphanage in Harlem since he was five, before a fire had burned it down. In a panic, the younger children had been split up and sent to whichever other orphanages had empty beds. Bucky didn’t know what happened to the older kids, the _differentiated_ ones. But in retrospect he assumed that the omegas had been practically auctioned off to the highest bidder and the alphas left to find jobs and support themselves. After differentiation, the orphanages couldn’t help but work to push their remaining children out into the cruel, greedy world.

Eleven-year-old Bucky didn’t enjoy the idea of being pushed into a new world, with a new set of kids and a new set of rules, and especially a new set of _religious_ rulemakers. But he didn’t think he’d miss the dingy State Orphanage or the other children much. Our Lady of Mercy was taking Bucky and four of his fellow orphans, but the others were of different ages and not particular friends of Bucky’s. Back at State, even the children Bucky’s age weren’t his friends. As a veteran of the orphanage system, he’d learned it was better to be fierce and scrappy and maybe a little lonely than be the subject of the many thefts and cruelties that befell the more soft-hearted of the newly-orphaned. 

Joe, Bucky’s only ‘friend,’ though he was more of a mentor (as much as a 13-year-old boy could be), had taught Bucky that it was better to be a shark in a pool of minnows than be one of the minnows. But Joe had differentiated as an alpha the previous year and he wasn’t being sent off with the other young ones. Bucky didn’t expect to ever see him again.

Still, Bucky clasped his small pillowcase full of belongings, containing the bottlecap pin that Joe had given him for his birthday and remembered his mentor’s words. After Sister Madeline hastily gestured to the bunk bed with the empty top bunk in the older boys undifferentiated dorm, Bucky took a brave step inside. All of the fifteen other boys were already in bed, most of them poorly feigning sleep. The monks and nuns must be very scary for them to even be pretending with a new arrival here. At State Orphanage there would have been a riot to learn about the new person and fleece some of his valuables.

Bucky was glad to have the silent audience for his first display of dominance. He approached the assigned bed with his back straight and a practiced swagger in his stride, tossing his pillowcase on top of the boy tucked into the covers on the bottom bunk. The sisters and brothers sure had an iron grip on these kids, because Bucky’s new bunkmate hadn’t even sat up from his cocoon of blankets in order to greet him. 

“Get up,” Bucky ordered, gratified at the way his voice boomed in the silence. “I want the bottom bunk.” In truth, the top bunk was strategically superior, but the best security was an early offense.

The kid didn’t sit up, but he did say. “My name is Steve Rogers. Pleased to meet you.”

Bucky was used to begging, whining, trembling, and defiance, but not _politeness_ as a response. He frowned. He supposed it couldn’t hurt to let the kid know his name. “People call me Bucky,” he replied. “Now, I want the bottom bunk. So move.”

The kid seemed to consider it for a moment, before replying, “Brother Franklin told me to take the bottom, but I’ve always wanted the top.” The kid - no, Steve - smiled a soft, slightly mischievous smile, knowing full well that he was completely undermining Bucky’s display of dominance. Maybe a random display of violence was in order.

But then Steve threw the blankets off his body and it became painfully clear why Brother Franklin wanted him on the bottom. It had been difficult to tell when only his head protruded from what Bucky now saw was a _surplus_ number of blankets, but Steve didn’t look like he belonged in the dorm with the other ten to fourteen-year-olds. His body looked more like he was six or seven. Even in the meager light that spilled into the room from the open door, Bucky thought he could see every one of Steve’s ribs where his shirt clung tight to him. His skin was pale, nearly translucent, and his arms shook with the strain of pulling himself up onto the higher bunk. Bucky resisted the urge to stand behind him on the ladder in case he fell.

It was clear that Bucky’s plan to gain dominance was foolish. Anyone could dominate the weakest kid in the joint. In fact, Bucky’s long-dormant sense of guilt awoke from its deep slumber and after Sister Madeline returned to close the door and turn off the hallway light, Bucky pulled off the extra quilt that had clearly been there to keep Steve from freezing to death and passed it to the top bunk.

***

The next day, Bucky paid for his mistake in the yard. Steve had been kept inside by a stern Sister Madeline because he had a cough and she didn’t want him to aggravate it in the cold. Bucky tried to convince himself that he didn’t care. So what if Steve was the only person that he knew? So what if Steve had promised to show him around, only to be waylaid by a fierce coughing fit?

As it turned out, Steve’s absence was the worse thing that could’ve happened to Bucky, because the second Brother Charles went back inside to look for his gloves, a group of 15-year-old alphas approached Bucky, looking absolutely menacing. Bucky was big for his age, but nowhere near big enough to take on a group five years older, let alone _alphas_. At State, the differentiated were so absorbed in their new hormones and new status that they stayed out of the affairs of the younger students, as if by unspoken agreement. Things were obviously different here.

A red-haired, freckled girl with a wide grin and an ample bosom, clearly the leader of the group, grabbed Bucky by his coat and pinned him with her intense brown eyes. “We heard you bullied Steve.”

Her gang nodded, closing in on Bucky like a noose.

The girl shook Bucky again, like he were no more than a ragdoll. “Ain’t you gonna deny it?”

Bucky shook his head, ashamed to have bullied the most defenseless among them. 

“Good,” the girl pronounced. “Look, we alphas normally try to stay out of the business of you un-differentiated, but we’ve a rule. Nobody touches Steve. Got it?”

Bucky nodded. His cheeks were hot with shame and he could feel the whole schoolyard looking at him. He just wanted this to be over.

But of course it wasn’t. The girl nodded to a big, burly alpha, who looked made to work at the shipyards, if he didn’t already. She held Bucky down while her friend pulled back his big meaty fist and punched Bucky hard in the stomach. Bucky doubled over in pain, trying not to cry, though he was sure one or two tears managed to escape.

“We’ll leave you with just that,” the girl spat, “seeing as you’re new here.”

When she released him, Bucky dropped to the ground, stifling a moan. Brother Charles returned just in time to catch Bucky still writhing on the ground, but not soon enough to catch the gang of alphas in the act. 

“My, my, what happened to you, my boy?” he cooed in his soft, nurturing voice. 

Bucky allowed Brother Charles to help him up, but refused to reveal who had done this to him. He didn’t need to add tattletale to his worsening reputation. When Brother Charles asked the rest of the students, he was met with blank stares. It seemed the whole orphanage closed ranks around the alpha pack and around Steve.

The alpha had hit Bucky hard, probably as hard as he could without causing permanent damage, so Bucky barely made it through the rest of classes. The school section of Our Lady of Mercy was much better than at State and Bucky was surprised to find himself challenged for the first time in his life, but the pain lingered to the point where he could barely remember to stand when his name was called. 

He was quiet throughout dinner, responding to Steve’ enthusiastic questioning about his previous home but not hearing his own answers.

It wasn’t until they were back in the dorm that Steve discovered the playground incident. Bucky found himself whimpering when he had to put his hands over his head to remove his sweater. Steve was beside him in an instant, helping to ease it off and demanding, “What happened to you, Bucky? Did someone try to bully you for being the new kid?”

Bucky laughed. “The opposite, actually. They beat me up because they didn’t like me bullying you.”

Steve scowled. “I don’t need their protection. I’ll talk to them. It won’t happen again.” And that was when Bucky realized that this tiny boy with the cough and the fierce, determined smile was actually the most powerful person in this place. 

It provoked Bucky to use words that he hadn’t said, or in the very least meant sincerely, for as long as he could remember: “I’m sorry.”

Steve shrugged. “I know you didn’t mean it. I can tell. Some of these kids, they enjoy being cruel. The neighborhood gangs are even worse. You didn’t enjoy it. I just don’t understand why you bothered if you knew you wouldn’t.”

Bucky grimaced. “I was afraid,” he admitted. There was just something about this kid, the way his big blue eyes seemed to stare straight through to the soul. It made Bucky want to confess every sin, every secret fear. “It’s better to be the bully than the bullied.”

Steve reached out, taking Bucky’s hand in his. “You don’t have to be either. There are bullies, but there are good people too. Put your faith in their kindness and not their capacity for evil.”

“You can take the lower bunk tonight,” Bucky replied. “I actually like the top better.”

Steve laughed. “I told you that I’ve been wanting to sleep on the top for a long time. You can stay where you are.”

Bucky worried every time he had to watch Steve struggle to climb the ladder, but luckily it wasn’t long before Brother Franklin found out and ordered them to switch. That didn’t stop Bucky worrying about Steve, though. He had a feeling he’d be worrying about Steve for the rest of his life.


	2. Bridges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve, Bucky, puppy love and bullies.

Bucky didn’t know why Steve stayed friends with him. They were both the same age and they were both smart, but not in the same way. Steve was artistic. He excelled at English and History. Whereas Bucky had a talent for numbers and science, enough to be given special assignments for it. Next year, Mother Maria had arranged for Bucky to attend the local alpha middle school, even though he was still undifferentiated - an opportunity he never would have received at State. It surprised Bucky to find that when he applied himself to his studies and followed Steve in his polite, inquisitive ways, he was a favorite of the teachers and staff instead of the troublemaker who never spent a day without bruises from the paddle, like before.

Steve had taught himself to draw and made little comics for the other boys for a nickel. He just turned that money around to buy more paper and the special pencils and erasers used for drawing, but Bucky still admired his talent. He made comics for Bucky for free. There was no special school for artists, but Mother Maria made sure that the school’s meager library got donations of books on art and drawing when she could. Despite how the monks and nuns doted on him, Steve was popular. The other kids loved his drawings and he was always willing to help when someone struggled in History or English. He didn’t have a big appetite, despite the attempts of nearly everyone to fatten him up, and he shared his extra food with whomever seemed to be in the middle of a growth spurt and needed the extra nutrition. And when he caught pneumonia, the entire school seemed subdued and worried until he recovered.

Steve could have chosen any of the kids to be his best friend, but for some reason, he had chosen Bucky and Bucky was more than grateful for it. Steve couldn’t run around in the yard like the other kids, so he would sit sketching while Bucky played baseball or soccer. But sometimes Bucky wouldn’t join in and would sit with Steve instead, playing cards or making up fake commentary for the games as though they were the sports announcers on the radio. 

They also worked on their comic series. It was really Steve’s comic series, because he was the only one who could draw and he was a better writer, too, but Bucky came up with good ideas that Steve was almost always willing to include. The comic was about a superhero that they called ‘the Defender’ and his sidekick, Bullseye. The Defender was formerly a genie who had been freed from his lamp by his master and vowed to spend his life freeing others from servitude. When he lost his power to grant wishes, his magic was considerably weakened, but he maintained his superior speed and strength. 

Even though Bucky was just a gangly, skinny kid, he posed for all of the comic stances when Steve needed to work out an angle, staying in position until his arms fell asleep. He even invented quite a few of the fighting movies. 

But Bucky didn’t really understand the true nature of the Defender and Bullseye until he and Steve were walking back from Saturday on the Brooklyn Bridge, where many of the orphans would go to make some change. Most were too young to officially work, but all kids needed a nickel here and there for the few spare treasures that gave them joy. Some of the kids would help with delivery of the Sunday paper, others shined shoes or just plain begged.

Sickly as he was, Steve could probably beg, but he refused to. He made enough selling his comics to the neighborhood boys and a few of the other orphans, even splitting the profits with Bucky (who tried to turn them down at first, but had given in to Steve’s stubbornness). They could have made enough for candies and even the occasional luxury, like a real comic every now and then, but Bucky wanted to save up enough to get Steve a set of watercolors for his birthday. For that, he needed to work. He decided on a little business buying candies in bulk and selling them individually. He and Steve had made enough from the comics to “invest” in the initial bags of taffies and lollipops and unlike many of their classmates, they had enough self-restraint to not eat their profits.

Steve would not be left behind on Saturdays, even though Bucky worried that the bridge was too long a walk for him with his asthma. Bucky admitted that he sold less without Steve and the stirrings of sympathy he engendered in their customers, but he would rather that Steve stayed home when he had even a hint of an illness. Today, Steve was recovering from a cold, but it was one of those perfect Spring days when the sky was blue and the air was clear and the sun seemed to thaw the cold of winter from the skin. Bucky didn’t have the heart to tell Steve he should stay inside on a day like this.

“That was a good haul today, wasn’t it Buck?” Steve grinned. His cheeks were flushed with exertion from their walk, but his smile was so brilliant that Bucky couldn’t help but smile back. He was definitely on track to have enough for the watercolor set.

“Yeah, there were a lot of people out today. Hey, now that summer’s coming, maybe we should think about adding lemonade or iced tea to our sales. It would be hard to carry. Maybe we could pay someone who lives near the bridge to let us use their water and make some kind of concentrated juice to mix with it.”

“That’s a great idea, Bucky! I can see why Sister Madeline wants to send you to a special school,” he nudged Bucky’s arm with his sharp little shoulder. Bucky knew that Steve was worried about Bucky going to the alpha school - not just because Bucky would be an undifferentiated orphaned kid in a school full of middle-class alphas, but because they would be separated.

“Steve,” Bucky began, knowing that they would have to talk about this at some point. The old Bucky, from State Orphanage, never would have discussed his feelings with Steve, but this Bucky would have to, because Steve was annoyingly perceptive and even more annoyingly sensitive and he would be hurt if he thought Bucky was hiding anything from him. Bucky resolved to get better at hiding, but for now he had to say it. “I’m going to miss you at my new school.”

Steve smiled, grabbing Bucky’s hand and squeezing it even though they were getting a little too old to be holding hands like innocent children. He led Bucky over towards the small park on the opposite side of the street so they could sit down on a small hill. Bucky pretended it was to look up at the fluffy blue clouds in the sky and not because the walk was tiring Steve. “I’m going to miss you too, Buck.”

“But we’ll still see each other all the time,” Bucky continued. “We don’t need to see each other during classes. I’ll probably be less distracted without you there doodling cartoons on your chalkboard.”

“And I’ll be less distracted by your grand plot to convince Brother Franklin that evil spirits keep moving his erasers.”

“I would be less likely to plot if Brother Franklin were less gullible,” Bucky grumbled. Brother Franklin had become Bucky’s nemesis when he tried to keep Steve from going to see the Dodgers with him when they’d finally saved up enough money for entrance. It didn’t matter that it was a tiring day, the look of pure joy on Steve’s face when the Dodgers had beat the Cubs 9-7 was worth it.

Steve laughed. With the sun ringing his golden hair like a halo and a healthy flush from their walk, Bucky could almost convince himself that Steve was like any other boy - that he wasn’t the sickly kid that nobody had expected to live past five, let alone outlive both his parents. Bucky pushed aside the ever-present worry that had only solidified with Steve’s latest battle with pneumonia and slung his arm around his friend, ignoring how slight Steve felt in his arms. “It doesn’t matter what happens, we’ll still be friends, right?”

Steve leaned into Bucky even though he mimed annoyance at the way Bucky used his superior strength and longer reach to hold on while he ruffled Steve’s hair. Steve would fight back if the other children tried to manhandle him (and thanks to Bucky’s expert tutelage, he never fought fair), but he let Bucky tussle with him, even though it was mostly an act, designed to play like a friendship between two normal boys when in reality Bucky was exceedingly careful not to injure his friend. 

“Of course we’ll still be friends. I promise, no matter what, you’ll always be my friend.” Bucky had brought this up in order to comfort Steve, but as usual, Steve ended up comforting him. 

“Pinky swear?” Bucky asked.

“Sure.” Bucky released Steve and they went about linking their pinkies with a reverence more befitting a treaty signing that two kids sitting in a park on Saturday.

“I, Steve Rogers, promise to always be friends with James Barnes,” Bucky grimaced at the use of his full name - his father’s name. “No matter what.”

“Even if I differentiate as an omega and you as an alpha?” Bucky asked. Steve insisted that he would differentiate as an alpha. He said he felt like an alpha and he believed that if he _wanted_ enough, it would happen. He didn’t care if he’d have a hard life trying to make enough money to support a family when, as an orphan, he had to start out with absolutely nothing. He didn’t care that it would be incredibly difficult for him to find an omega, being as small and sickly as he was. 

Bucky, on the other hand, didn’t have Steve’s confidence (or maybe it was Steve’s stubbornness that he lacked). He didn’t have any deep-down feeling that said he would be one or the other. Bucky felt comfortable being dominant when necessary and being tall for his age was an early indicator of alpha traits, but since becoming Steve’s friend, he’d settled easily into the role of follower. Brother Charles had explained how God had made Adam to be a strong and dominant leader and Eve to be receptive and soft, but Bucky didn’t entirely believe that alphas and omegas naturally fit into such neat personality boxes - after all, it was Eve who found the apples and Eve who led Adam to try them, if that wasn’t a form of leadership, Bucky didn’t know what was. He suspected that alphas became dominant and unruly because that was expected of them and omegas became accommodating and delicate because those were the things people said were desirable in an omega. 

Bucky himself felt as though he could easily become either (and Steve could too, even though Bucky was not so cruel as to say so to his face). Bucky was happy with the idea of being an alpha - he’d be able to stay at the alpha school and could go to work as a machinist in a factory as planned, maybe even become an architect or an engineer one day, after completing his schooling. It would be a hard life but a rewarding one. 

Bucky was not adverse to the idea of being an omega either. Life was hard for orphaned alphas - they had to start with nothing, probably work years before accumulating enough to support an omega. Most had to start work early, before they finished their schooling, and they were shepherded around under the watchful eyes of the teachers and staff, and treated with suspicion for fear that they might drag one of the orphanage’s omegas down into poverty with them. The omegas had much better prospects. If they differentiated early, they would have a few years of lonely heats, but once they turned fifteen, they could be married off to one of the suitors who visited the monthly omega socials hosted by Our Lady of Mercy in combination with a few other orphanages. They could marry into a better life.

Steve blushed shyly, untwining their pinkies and pulling away. “If you differentiate as an omega, I probably won’t want to be _just_ your friend,” he whispered.

Bucky gaped. He’d been so worried about what he would differentiate as, he honestly hadn’t considered what would come after. Of course he’d eventually have to find a spouse, whichever he differentiated as, but he never considered that his spouse could be _Steve_. Then they wouldn’t have to worry about their spouses letting them stay friends. Steve could go to art school and Bucky could work in a factory or as a secretary if he differentiated as an omega and they were good at business, as their candy sales proved. Maybe they could get a little store with an apartment above it and go to Dodgers games and movies and take trips upstate to fish and hunt. There was the matter of children, but Bucky preferred not to think about that. It was enough to imagine _never_ having to leave Steve.

“I know I’m not exactly the ideal for an alpha,” Steve continued. “I’m skinny and short and all these health problems mean that I probably couldn’t get a good job in a factory or in the military. But I’m smart and I could be good at business and there are other jobs. It’s not the life you could have with one of the benefactors that come to the omega socials. We’d both have to work hard, but I would take good care of you,” he pleaded.

Bucky reached out and cupped Steve’s cheek. In the movies, that was usually the alpha’s move, but Bucky didn’t care if it made Steve meet his eyes so he could see how much Bucky wanted that less-than-perfect life too. “You already take good care of me, Defender.”

Steve laughed. “You think _I’m_ the Defender? Bucky, you’re the Defender and I’m Bullseye. Why do you think the Defender is a brunette and lots of muscles and Bullseye is blond and small?”

That hadn’t actually occurred to Bucky, even though now that he thought about it, Steve definitely resembled Bullseye. Obviously Bullseye wasn’t anywhere near as skinny as Steve, but he used his small agile frame to his advantage, to reach places that the Defender couldn’t or to spy or to find a sniper position to take out their enemies. The Defender looked less like Bucky, but he did have the same cleft chin and the same colored hair. It was the mustache and all the muscles that were different.

“I always thought you were the Defender,” Bucky admitted. “I mean, he’s the leader and the hero. And he’s always coming to the defense of people who are weaker than him. He’s the good one.”

Steve frowned. “To me, you’re the good one.” Bucky didn’t know how Steve could think that. Bucky didn’t have instincts to do good. He mostly looked to Steve for his moral cues. Yes, he would occasionally defend Steve from the taunts of the neighborhood kids, but so would anyone else from the Our Lady of Mercy. It was sweet, naive Steve who wouldn’t hesitate to help anyone in need, even if he had very little to spare for himself. It was Steve who always believed the best in people and it was Steve that made Bucky a better person.

Maybe it was just puppy love and maybe it would all change once they differentiated, but Bucky leaned forward, pressing his lips quickly to Steve’s. “If I differentiate as an omega, all of this,” he gestured to Steve’s body, “won’t matter to me. I’ll even pinky swear to it.” Bucky was more worried that they’d both be alphas or both omegas, because even though Bucky also disagreed with Brother Charles when it came to the topic of queers, he had no way of knowing if his body would still want Steve if they differentiated the same, even if he knew his mind still would.

When Bucky extended his pinkie for another swear, Steve leaned in to kiss Bucky again, but stopped when a shadow fell over them.

“Oh, how sweet.” The older kid and his two burly friends were backlit against the blue sky, but Bucky saw enough. He didn’t recognize them, but they were all thick with the strength of full bellies, with nice shoes and clean pants. They were easily 15 or older, but they obviously didn’t need to work or fight for their living. They were here because they were bored and Steve and Bucky had just shown them something interesting. “The little alpha can only find this pathetic omega,” the leader laughed, nudging Steve with his foot. “But if I were that poor, I guess I’d take what I could get.”

They were bored, Bucky told himself. If he just stayed quiet and didn’t react, they’d lose interest and leave them alone. He hadn’t forgotten all his lessons from State Orphanage.

Of course, Steve had never learned those lessons. “It doesn’t matter how much money you have,” Steve said. “No amount of money can make up for your ugly mug.” The kid was, in fact, ugly, with an upturned nose, curly red hair, and freckles that seemed to want to swarm exactly the wrong parts of his fat face.

“Hey, Mac, this one has a mouth on him,” one of the minions said. He would be handsome except for the ugly sneer on his face. “Small but feisty. I like that in an omega. They fight back just enough.” He leaned forward, grabbing Steve by the collar and shaking him. 

That’s when Bucky’s plan of fading into the background completely derailed. Nobody was allowed to manhandle Steve, especially not these bullies who were attracted to his weakness. Bucky launched himself at the boy, tackling him to the ground and landing a hard punch to his handsome face. It didn’t take his two friends long to haul Bucky off of him, but Bucky never fought fair, so he got in a kick to the balls as they were dragging him up. One goon was incapacitated, but the other two were more than enough to deliver a hard punch to his kidneys. Bucky collapsed onto the ground with the pain in his back, gasping.

But what was worse was that Mac, the ugly bastard, was now leaning over Steve. He took in a deep breath, sniffing in Steve’s scent before laughing. “This runt isn’t even differentiated,” he laughed. “They’re perverts!” 

It wasn’t considered perverted for young children to kiss each other or even touch, but Bucky knew that they had passed out of that age. When they could differentiate at any moment, the stigma of potentially being queer was enough. 

“Perverts with a bite,” said the kid that Bucky had attacked. “We should teach them a lesson.”

And with that, the third member of the gang delivered another kick to Bucky’s stomach, this time flipping him over with enough force that the change they’d collected from today’s sales jingled in his pocket. Unfortunately, Mac noticed. “Hold him down!” he commanded. Bucky struggled, but the other boys were bigger and soon fat fingers were digging into his pocket, pulling out the dollar twenty they’d earned today. “Look at this. Thanks, buddy,” he said, delivering a hard punch to Bucky’s left eye.

What nobody (Bucky included) had counted on was that Steve was now free and he was jumping on top of Mac, his skinny arms around his neck and his legs wrapped around his waist as he bit down hard on the boy’s nape, hard enough to draw blood. 

Bucky sure hoped it was worth it, because Mac had no trouble throwing Steve off and sending him crashing hard into a tree, where he slumped, cradling his right arm to him protectively. But the bullies weren’t content to stop there, the leader advanced on Steve while Bucky was pinned and helpless. At first this had been just another encounter with neighborhood heavies, but Bucky was soon becoming fearful that they might not actually escape this.

“Keep the money! Just leave him alone!” Bucky begged, struggling with all his might to throw his captor off, but then the kid he had kicked earlier recovered and was now helping, tearing Bucky’s clothes in an effort to keep him immobilized.

“No. This little shit bit me and because he ain’t no omega . . . yet, I can make him pay.”

Steve was clearly in pain, unable to stand, but his eyes flashed fiercely and he kept in the tears from what appeared to be the hurt of a broken wrist. Bucky doubted he himself would manage such strength. But the freckled fool didn’t care. He raised his fist and was ready to come down hard on Steve when they heard a man shout, “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?”

Bucky’s vision was blurring from the swelling to his eye, but he noticed man in a military uniform towering over the other boys. The sunlight gleamed of the various pins and medals on his uniform and his voice boomed with authority. “Get out of here!” he commanded. “Skedaddle before I do something we’ll all regret.”

Luckily for them, the bullies were wise enough to run away.

“Fools,” the man huffed. “Alphas picking on undifferentiated just so they’ll feel stronger. That ain’t what being an alpha is all about. Are you alright, son?” he asked Steve.

“Thank you, Sir,” Steve replied. “I’m a little banged up, but I’ll be fine.”

“The way you’re holding your arm says otherwise. Here, let me take a look. I promise I won’t think any less of you for it. I saw how you tried to help your friend. It was very brave of you.”

He must have been handling Steve’s wrist because Bucky heard a yelp. Even though he knew the man was a friend, a feeling of protectiveness surged in him and Bucky struggled to see what was going on, but the pain from where he’d been kicked in the stomach kept him down.

He was almost shocked when a face appeared above him. It was another man, with chocolate colored skin and deep honey-brown eyes. He helped Bucky gain his feet and Bucky leaned on him more than he would have liked, wheezing from his injuries. He regretted leaning on him even more when he realized that the man was an omega and quite far along in his pregnancy. 

“I’m sorry, sir,” he tried to back away, but stumbled. 

The soldier laughed at them. “It’s alright. Jack’s the strongest man I know, even with a baby in his belly. You go ahead and lean on him.”

Bucky didn’t like being babied, but he couldn’t seem to force his spine straight so he let the pregnant omega lead him over to a park bench. The couple sitting on it scowled at the colored man supporting the raggedy white child, but when the soldier followed them, carrying Steve in his arms, they thought the better of it and left the park.

“That wrist is broken, Jack,” the soldier said. “How’s the other one.”

Jack reached for Bucky, who let him untuck his shirt and feel along his ribs. When Bucky turned around, both men whistled at the bruise on his back. A lot of children probably would have shied away from having a negro touching them in a public park, but the touch was gentle and authoritative. None of the monks or nuns at Our Lady of Mercy touched like that, the way a parent did. Bucky sighed, relaxing into Jack’s ministrations.

“Nothing’s broken,” he said. “I’m a little worried about his kidneys, but some rest should be enough to cure it, so long as someone keeps an eye on him for signs of complications.”

“I can do it,” Steve piped up. He was hunched over his wrist, with tears in his eyes, but he was insistent.

The soldier chuckled, patting Steve on the back. “You, my boy, are the one in need of a doctor. Now what were you two doing, tussling with those alphas?”

Steve blushed. “We weren’t doing anything, sir.”

“Now, son, I know a guilty look when I see one. Try again.”

“We didn’t do anything to them,” Bucky protested. “We were . . . we were kissing.”

“Ah,” the soldier replied. “The forbidden romance.” He put an arm around the waist of his pregnant omega. “I’m no stranger to that. Jack and I get a lot of flack for being together. But he’s the best goddamned nurse on base and the love of my life, so I’m not going to let a little something like other people’s narrow-minded prejudices stop me.”

He leaned over to kiss his omega and Bucky found himself wishing that he could have that one day. Not the baby on the way part, but he wanted to find someone who he was willing to fight the whole world for. He hoped that person would be Steve, but they might not differentiate that way. 

“He don’t care about the anti-miscegenation laws either,” Jack added. “Or the Army’s rules. Or really anything anyone else has to say.” They kissed again. “And, god help me, I love him for it. But enough about us. Chester, what are we going to do about these two?”

“We’ll be fine, sirs,” Steve piped up. “We don’t mean to ruin your Saturday.”

“It was those bullies who ruined our Saturday with their foolishness,” Chester replied. “It makes me happy, running into two fine young gentlemen like yourselves. Gives me hope for what’s in store for us,” he patted his partner’s belly pointedly. “Now, let us walk you home so your mama can take you to get that arm seen to.”

“We can walk ourselves,” Steve said at the same moment that Bucky replied, “We’re at Our Lady of Mercy Orphanage on Seventh.”

Steve glared at Bucky, but Bucky knew better. The orphanage didn’t have the funds to pay for a good doctor. Steve’s pneumonia was treated with chicken soup and bedrest and broken bones were splinted in the hopes that they healed properly, but sometimes they didn’t. “If you know a doctor, one who won’t try to fleece us, I have some money saved up. I can pay you back when we get back to the orphanage.” Bucky reminded himself that having Steve's painting arm heal properly was more important than the water color set.

The two men stared at each other for a moment before moving as one. Chester scooped Steve up into his arms, ignoring his protests that he could walk and Jack helped Bucky to stand. “Doc Benson is also on leave, isn’t he?” Chester said. “You have his address?”

Jack smiled a charming, toothy grin. “I can do better. His father is also a doc. He gave me the address of his clinic in case of complications with the baby.”

They hailed a cab and made their way over the bridge to Manhattan. Steve screamed when Benson Sr. set his wrist. It was the worst sound Bucky had ever heard and he wanted nothing more than to protect Steve from making that noise ever again. But afterwards, after an embarrassing attempt by Mother Maria to encourage Major Phillips to adopt either Steve or Bucky, Bucky curled up behind Steve in the bottom bunk, both of them hurting but still whole. He reflected on how brave Major Phillips and his partner were to love each other and to bring a child into a world that would only judge it. Bucky hoped that he was the Defender, like Steve believed him to be, that he would be just as brave when the time came.

He reached out his pinky, touching it to Steve’s cast as his friend snored next to him on the narrow bunk. “I, James Barnes, swear to always be the friend of Steve Rogers. No matter what.”


	3. Out of Eden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Steve differentiate.

Bucky remembered the first day he noticed he was differentiating with a deep regret. He was walking back from the Rockafeller's School for Alphas when he passed a particularly narrow alleyway, one that had always smelled worse than others for lack of airflow. New York was a putrid smelling city in general, but all of a sudden, Bucky found himself collapsed on a stranger’s stoop, head lowered between his knees from nausea. The awful stink felt like a spike driven directly into his brain. He vomited into a sewer grate, stumbling away from that stench like he was being chased by a movie monster.

By the time he returned to Our Lady of Mercy, he had broken out into a cold sweat and could barely stand. It felt like his brain was rearranging itself, a whole new world unfolding, superimposed on the old - a world of smell.

Bucky had always liked Mother Maria, who taught religious studies and conducted mass in addition to running the orphanage. He relished in the days when she would take him aside to talk about the ways science could fit into a practice of faith. Unlike Steve, Bucky was constantly filled with doubt, but Mother Maria seemed to like that about him, rather than reject him for it, the way he’d feared when he’d first confessed that the theories of Darwin made him doubt in the Creator. But today, when she smiled at him in the corridor, he felt something vicious spring up in him, an instinctive hatred and distaste that made him want to scream at her for her stupid faith, even though her faith was something he’d always admired. 

Bucky clenched his fists and forced himself to smile back. Mother Maria didn’t deserve his hatred, he reminded himself. If she noticed anything strange about Bucky’s behavior, she didn’t let on, reminding him gently that tonight was an open house for prospective parents and that he should remember scrub behind his ears, as though any couples would be looking to adopt a fourteen-year-old.

Brother Franklin, on the other hand, had always been a thorn in Bucky’s side. He was overprotective of Steve and the way his voice managed to always be at once soft and harsh, like a strangled whisper, grated on Bucky’s nerves. But when he came by the showers to make sure all the prospective adoptees were in fact scrubbing behind their ears, Bucky felt his knees growing weak, his hands automatically reaching out for that intoxicating scent. It smelled like Spring and popcorn and the ocean and all of Bucky’s favorite things. He coughed, nearly choking on it. Something stirred deep in his belly, and when he looked down, he found that his penis was hard. Bucky shut off the water before he could scrub behind his ears and wrapped a towel around himself before any of the other boys could notice. He fled back to the dormitory, where he climbed up onto his bunk and hid beneath the covers, shivering with more than the damp of his wet hair.

It didn’t take Steve long to wander in, curious. He was still small and prone to illness, but Steve’s health had improved somewhat in the past half year and Bucky no longer fell into his habitual concern that Steve’s weakness would cause him to fall off the ladder when he climbed up into Bucky’s bunk. They pulled the blankets up into a nest as they leaned back against the wall and Bucky put his arm around Steve to stave off the shivers that wracked his small frame. Steve’s skin was damp and sticky against his, but his smell provoked neither instant hatred nor confusing desire. He just smelled comforting, familiar. Bucky buried his face in Steve’s shoulder and inhaled deeply.

“Bucky,” Steve whispered. “What’s the matter?” Of course he must have suspected. If Bucky wasn’t content in his denial, he would admit to himself that he knew exactly what was wrong. They both remembered the awkward monthly lessons Brother Charles stumbled through for all the older students, about how after Adam and Eve had partaken of the forbidden fruit, their world changed into one of smells and desires and they differentiated. Chubby, pasty Brother Charles was better at the scripture portion of the lessons than the awkward bird/bee related metaphors for what would happen afterwards. Bucky was happy for the biology textbooks and their clear-cut explanations and relayed the truths he learned at Rockafeller’s to the other undifferentiated while they crowded around his bunk like a pack of hungry dogs. 

He didn’t feel like the mature guru of the mysteries of adulthood now. He felt like nothing he’d read could prepare him for this, could make him more than a scared child on the cusp of things far beyond his control or understanding. 

Steve sat patiently, staring at Bucky with his kind blue eyes and that soft smile of his that never failed to unlock Bucky’s secrets. 

“I think I’m differentiating,” he whispered. They had both known it was coming. Most alphas differentiated between ages ten and fourteen and omegas between twelve and sixteen. Bucky was right in the target zone. Most kids looked forward to the transition - not the awkwardness of it, but the fact that they would _know_. Most kids looked forward to moving to the ‘young adult’ dormitories and thinking about jobs or marriage and finally being able to leave the orphanage and embark on their lives. But all Bucky could think about was that if he differentiated, he would have to leave Steve.

Steve pulled back only enough so that he could look Bucky in the eyes. When Bucky didn’t continue, Steve poked him. “Well? What are you: alpha or omega?” 

“I’m an alpha,” Bucky said, burying his face in Steve’s bony shoulder. If Bucky was an alpha then he could never be Steve’s omega, like they’d planned. “What are we going to do?”

“What do you mean? You’ll go to the alpha dorm and the special alpha classes with Mother Maria, like all the other alphas.”

“But we won’t be together,” Bucky protested.

“I’m only ten months younger than you, Bucky. Odds are I’ll be joining you soon.” Bucky didn’t point out that if Steve differentiated as an omega, he wouldn’t be. They never discussed the possibility, by unspoken agreement. “And you already go to a different school, so we won’t see each other any less. We’ll see each other all the time.”

Bucky nodded. Steve’s point _sounded_ logical, but Bucky couldn’t help the feeling of panic that overtook him. He wasn’t ready for this. He didn’t want things to _change_ even though it meant that they were one step closer to adulthood, when things would finally settle down and they’d know what they would be. “Okay. But I’ve only started the transition. It could be up to a year before I start producing alpha pheromones. Please don’t tell anyone until then. I can stay here. We can hide it.”

It was clear from Steve’s frown that he didn’t like the idea of lying to Sister Madeline, who they were supposed to inform at the first signs of differentiation, but he nodded, pulling Bucky close. They would get through this, together.

***

As it turned out, they didn’t have the year that Bucky hoped they would.

Steve had been sick again. According to the other students, Sister Madeline used to have her own separate room, but once Steve came to the orphanage, she had moved in with Brother Charles in order to give them an extra room outside the infirmary to quarantine sick students who needed peace and quiet in order to recuperate. Steve was not the only student who utilized the room, but he was certainly its most frequent visitor.

Steve had been struck with a nasty cold. It was a sinus infection this time, not pneumonia, but it had been going on for weeks. Bucky had no idea how a body so small could even produce that much mucus. Steve also suffered fevers and chills and a general state of exhaustion so bad that he needed help holding up the meager cups of broth that were all that he could eat.

Bucky spent every moment he wasn’t at school by Steve’s side. Brother Franklin even allowed Bucky to sleep there so that if Steve woke up choking on mucus, there would be someone there to hold him up while he coughed it out. If Steve was having trouble breathing, Bucky would move the bed so that they could sleep sitting up against the wall, with Steve propped between Bucky’s legs. Bucky was always exhausted the day after nights like that, when he practically vibrated with worry, but it didn’t matter so long as Steve fought to see another day.

The illness was finally easing and Bucky knew that this was Steve’s last night in the isolation room. Bucky was relieved, but he still worried and managed to get Brother Franklin to let him stay with Steve again, only this time he actually dozed off.

Bucky awoke to _touch_. His skin felt hypersensitive, awake and aware with a mind of its own where it was touching the rough sheets, where his arms wrapped around a narrow waist. And he was surrounded by the most heavenly scent. After his initial struggles, the omegas around him had not stopped smelling amazing, but they had stopped being distracting. This was a whole other level. He shifted, not opening his eyes in the darkness, just inhaling the amazing scent that seemed to shoot right through him, electrifying every cell of his body. Bucky had never felt so alive.

He was pressed up against something, someone. He felt soft hairs tickle his nose and his mouth was pressed up against the perfect heat of skin, flushed with sweat and fever and something glorious. Bucky’s hips moved instinctively, rutting into the soft flesh in front of him. Someone moaned and the sound went straight to his groin. Bucky had become used to the embarrassing hardness that sprung up seemingly without his will, but this was different. He felt like someone had swept the rug out from under him - that pulling sensation in his belly, familiar from the rides at the fair, the way he seemed to always leave his stomach at the top. 

And the _smell_. It was relentless, all-encompassing, devastating. Bucky knew somewhere beyond the sweet musk that he should be thinking, but it was like being trapped in a fog. Someone moaned, a body shifted and then Bucky felt the familiar press of lips on his. The body and the smell and the sweet touches running under Bucky’s undershirt - they were all Steve. Bucky gasped, knowing at once that he wanted this more than anything he’d ever wanted in his life and that he _had_ always wanted it even if he didn’t know what ‘it’ was. They weren’t queers after all; they could have this.

Bucky smiled into the kiss, deepening it and letting his tongue explore in the way the alphas at his school had whispered about. Steve’s mouth was warm and pliant and he shifted so that Bucky could move on top of him, with Bucky inserted between his spread legs. Heat gathered deep in Bucky’s belly, like he had a fever, like he was a blazing sun. This time, when his hips snapped forward involuntarily, Steve’s hardness answered his own.

When Bucky finally opened his eyes it was to find that Steve’s were still closed. Dawn was upon them and there was just enough light to see the perfect line of Steve’s neck as he arched it. Bucky ached to bite and claim him, but something deep in the recesses of his heat-addled mind stopped him. There was a wetness growing between them, a combination of their arousals. Bucky couldn’t help himself, he thrust down hard only to be met with a pained whimper from Steve. 

Steve’s eyes flew open and for a moment their eyes met with such passion that Bucky thrust again.

This time Steve cried out. “Bucky, stop! You’re hurting me.”

Bucky practically fell out of the bed and was across the room in a minute. He never wanted to hurt Steve. He couldn’t. It was as instinctual as his drive to mate Steve had been a moment ago. This was what he wanted, but it wasn’t ever in Steve’s plans. They couldn’t just mate right here in the isolation room at 14-years-old and barely differentiated. Steve had been sick and Steve didn’t want to be an omega. There wasn’t much risk of pregnancy for the first few years of an omega’s fertility, but Bucky knew he would never forgive himself if something happened now, when they both had nothing and lived in a orphanage.

Bucky shivered in cold and fear and a sudden despair that descended upon him from being even these few feet away from his omega. Steve wasn’t _his_ , Bucky reminded himself. That was the heat talking.

He fought to get his breathing under control, choking on a sob. “Steve?”

Steve sat up in the bed, blankets pooling around him. “I’m an omega,” he gasped.

They stared at each other for a long moment before the door burst in and Mother Maria was grabbing Bucky by the arm and tossing him out of the room. He stumbled and fell to the ground in a confused, whimpering heap. “You!” she shouted. She looked like a harpy with her curly black hair, going grey at the temples, and her intense black eyes, every inch the Italian matron. Mother Maria had a reputation for her anger, but she had never been angry with Bucky before. “You are not going to ruin things for him, do you hear me? This poor boy is going to find a good alpha who can take care of him, who can afford the medicines he needs and who can give him the freedom to be an artist like he dreams. I should have known. You have always been too close. I should have known you differentiated and were just laying in wait so you could prey on someone weaker than you.”

And then she was upon him, all their pleasant talks, all the times she told him he was going to make a life for himself, be something, it was all forgotten. Mother Maria was a practiced disciplinarian. She didn’t need the paddle to come down hard on Bucky, flipping him over to spank him like he weighed nothing.

“He didn’t do anything!” Steve shouted, jumping out of bed to try to restrain Mother Maria. “He stopped.” Steve’s frantic pulling couldn’t stop her, but his sobs eventually weakened the blows. “Please, please, Mother, he was in the bed with me when it started, but he stopped.”

Mother Maria stood, leaving Bucky on the ground with tears in his eyes. He cried half for the pain in his bruised backside and half for the loss. It wouldn’t just be Mother Maria who treated him differently now. The world was set. He was an alpha and Steve was an omega and their futures were prescribed. Even if he could earn enough to be a good alpha to Steve and eventually win his heart, whatever innocence they once had was lost.

Mother Maria’s face had gone red with rage, but it soon faded, her stoic half-frown returned and she brushed her hands down the pleats in her robes, smoothing away any trace of her previous wrath. 

She turned to Bucky. “You will report to the alpha dorms immediately. Tomorrow morning you will collect your things and move there permanently. For the next two months you are on punishment. After school you will help the cook with dinner. After dinner, if you have homework, you will do it in my office. If you have free time after dinner you will report to Brother Franklin for work detail. On the weekends you will assist Sister Madeline with charities and proselytizing. You will sleep in the alpha dorms and you will not visit any other rooms. If I catch you alone with Steve or any of the other omegas or undifferentiated students, you will no longer have a place here, am I clear?” 

Bucky nodded. Based on the rules he knew, he was getting off easily. Attack on an omega, especially in heat, was a crime and grounds for immediate expulsion. State Orphanage didn't even accept differentiated alphas. It was probably only sympathy and the fact that Steve had insisted that Bucky had already stopped that allowed him to keep his place at Our Lady of Mercy.

“And you,” the head mother turned to Steve. “You knew that he had differentiated?”

Steve nodded. He was shaking with his heat and the scent became an impenetrable fog, but the hurt and fear kept Bucky from going to him, as his body so desperately wanted.

“And your own omega status?” The anatomy book Bucky found in the school library said it was unusual for an omega to go into their first heat without prior warning signs, usually sensory. Had Steve known, just been in denial that he could be anything other than an alpha?

“I swear I didn’t know, ma’am. My nose has been so stuffed up that I couldn’t have smelled anything even if my senses were heightened.”

It wasn’t like Steve to lie, but Bucky couldn’t be sure if he was lying in this case. It was a plausible explanation, but Bucky found it hard to believe that Steve had no inklings of what might be happening. Even with a nose full of mucus, he must have noticed something different.

Mother Maria scrutinized him for a long moment before nodding to herself. She must have believed Steve. “Hiding your omega status is just as dangerous as hiding alpha status. We keep students separated exactly to prevent situations like this. But I don’t believe you are foolish enough to voluntarily share a bed with an alpha, if you knew you had differentiated as an omega.”

Bucky sighed in relief. Mother Maria was right. Maybe Steve had suspected something was off, but he never would have risked going into heat with Bucky right there - Steve was too smart for that. 

“You did break the rules nonetheless. If it was Master Barnes’ duty to report his differentiation, it was your duty to disclose it, for your safety as well as that of all the omegas here. After finishing your heat in the omega quarantine room, you will stay in the omega ward. You will have no contact with Master Barnes outside of mealtimes and on weekends you will will assist Brother Charles with clerical work.”

With that, Mother Maria grabbed Steve by the hand and dragged him off towards the omega ward. “See to yourself, Master Barnes,” she called after her.

Steve turned back, his big blue eyes sharp with worry. He reached out the hand that Mother Maria did not have a hold of, like he was reaching for Bucky. The Priestess noticed, grabbing the hand with a put-upon sigh. She stopped, turning Steve to face her and holding onto both his shoulders so he was forced to meet her eyes. “Listen to me, child, the heat is the Cross that God has demanded that all omegas must bear. But I promise it will pass. Whatever you feel now will pass.” Steve whimpered, forcing Bucky immediately to his feet, despite the pain from his punishment. “I know it hurts, but that, too, will pass. I know it seems impossible, but all omegas go through this and the world keeps turning. You will hate me for tearing you away from this alpha and the momentary relief he might provide, but when you are through it and you have your whole future open to you, you will thank me.”

Bucky watched Steve nod through his tears. He stayed where he was until they turned a corner and for long moments afterwards. He couldn’t contemplate his punishment. He couldn’t contemplate not spending every free moment with Steve. He certainly couldn’t contemplate not having a moment alone to discuss this monumental change that was suddenly upon them. Bucky thought differentiation would be the start of a wonderful future together, but growing up was a curse, like Brother Charles said - it was being expelled from paradise.

***

Bucky didn’t see Steve for five days. It wasn’t unusual for the first heat to last longer, but Bucky still worried. The average heat lasted one or two days, but Steve had always been different. He itched for news, but only on the fourth day did he work up the courage to ask Sister Madeline about it. He had wisely been avoiding Mother Maria for fear of incurring further punishment, but Sister Madeline was soft-spoken and kind. She never had a bad word to say about anything - the disappointed look on her beautiful face was enough to compel compliance from the children. She told Bucky that Steve was alright, that his heat had lasted three days, but the strain on his system had been great and he was still resting.

When Steve appeared in the dining hall for breakfast on the fifth day, Bucky breathed a sigh of relief. Steve still looked pale and had dark circles under his eyes, but he was no longer sniffling and he seemed to have no lingering weakness from his previous illness. The other omegas crowded around him protectively and he managed to find a smile for all of them, though Bucky could tell that he probably would prefer to be alone.

Five days ago, they would have been huddled together at the end of their favorite table, planning out their next comic or analyzing their candy sales or sharing secrets, but now, for the first time since Bucky came here, he hesitated when he entered the room. Steve was sitting with the omegas and there was no empty seat next to him.

Bucky smiled at Steve when he passed, wanting to reach out and put a hand on his shoulder, but Mother Maria was sitting at the head table today and one look at her intense glare made him pull back, walking to sit down between Bobby and Phyllis at the alpha table. 

Even if Bucky would rather be sitting with Steve at their table, he had to admit that he’d had no reason to be afraid of spending time in the alpha dorms. The alphas at Our Lady of Mercy weren’t like the kids at school who flung spitballs at the back of his head or pushed him in the mud so that he’d sully his only school uniform and have to hope it dried by the next morning. The orphanage alphas were in the same boat as Bucky - knowing that when they turned fifteen they’d be sent to vocational training and at sixteen they’d be moved to an apartment building that the Church owned where they’d have to pay rent, albeit rent subsidized by the Church.

Still, Phyllis was relentlessly cheerful and Bobby was determined to marry a girl in his class at the local high school and all the other alphas were friendly and good-natured. They gave Bucky hope that maybe things could work out for him if he just worked hard and stayed positive. It was a motto that Steve had been pushing at him for years, but somehow it took looking at his fellow alphas and wanting only the best for them to convince Bucky that if there was a god and the universe made any sense at all, the dreamers would be rewarded.

Today was a good day and they had eggs along with their toast. Most of the other students were focus on filling their bellies, but Bucky only pushed his eggs around his plate with his fork.

“So, you and Steve?” Phyllis said with a smile. 

Bucky found himself blushing in spite of himself. “There is no ‘me and Steve.’”

“Sure, and I’m the Pope,” Bobby replied. “Everybody knows that Mother Maria caught you in a heat cycle with Steve. And the two of you have been in your own world since before differentiation.”

“I think it’s romantic,” Phyllis said. “I don’t care what Mother Maria says, I _do_ believe in love matches and yours is a love match if I ever saw one.”

“Yeah,” Bobby added, “don’t let her tell you that you ain’t good enough. She don’t know what happens to the alphas that leave here. She don’t know that they can’t find anyone to love ‘em.”

Bucky looked down at his eggs, finding them suddenly runny and unappealing. In truth, he knew that Steve loved him. And he didn’t worry about not being good enough. He knew he was good enough. What he did worry about was the one good point that Mother Maria had made. Steve wasn’t like the other orphans. He couldn’t just scrape by on the minimum to put a roof above his head and food in his mouth. Steve’s health problems were serious and the stamina needed to survive a heat would only make them worse. Bucky couldn’t even imagine how difficult a pregnancy would be without proper medical care. “Mother Maria can’t do anything to stop us once we leave here,” he said. “I’ll just have to start saving up now, and by the time Steve has to leave, I’ll have enough to support him.”

Bobby and Phyllis exchanged a dubious look. “How’re you going to start saving up? You’re just a kid. When you turn fifteen, you can get an apprenticeship like me. The omegas don’t have to leave until they turn eighteen, so you’ll still have plenty of time to save.” They didn’t mention that almost none of the omegas waited that long. Only the few who had some problem that prevented them from finding an alpha remained - like Anna and her hunched back or slow Jacob or John, who wanted to become a monk.

Steve would wait, though. Steve was just stubborn enough to wait. Bucky smiled, imagining him crossing his tiny arms over his chest and telling Mother Maria that no matter how many alphas she introduced him to, he only wanted Bucky. 

Bobby and Phyllis, as nice as they were, were content to let life bring opportunity to them. They weren’t go-getters like Bucky. He knew where he could get a job. Bonnie, from Rockefeller’s, had a father who owned a textile factory in the garment district. Even though they weren’t friends, Bonnie had invited Bucky over one day for dinner so that her father could tell him that he was looking for non-union workers for his factory and that he would even take some of the underaged orphans, since most didn’t have proper records and therefore couldn’t get him in trouble for employing them. Bucky had tried to imagine Phyllis and Bobby and some of the other alphas at Our Lady of Mercy working in a grimy textile factory for less than the going wage, but he couldn’t bring himself to put them in that position. He’d told Bonnie’s father that no one was interested. He probably knew that Bucky was lying, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.

Bucky hadn’t wanted grimly, dangerous factory work for his fellow orphans, but he was smart and strong and he was a hard worker. He could handle himself well enough with the older workers and because he had a definite connection to Bonnie and the school she went to, her father couldn’t treat him too badly. Bucky decided that he would get Bonnie to ask him the next day of school.

Bucky couldn’t wait to tell Steve all about his plan, how everything would work out in the end, but he didn’t have time until dinner, exhausted from school and peeling potatoes and kneading dough all afternoon. He was in luck because tonight was the omega social and Mother Maria was escorting the orphanage’s of-age omegas. 

As part of his humiliating kitchen duties, Bucky was supposed to help serve dinner, so Steve was already forlornly stirring his stew when Bucky sat down in the seat next to him. Without many of the omegas, they had almost an entire table to themselves - for which Bucky was grateful. Phyllis and Bobby’s propensity to gossip only proved that there wasn’t any privacy in this place, but Bucky would take what he could get.

Of course, all of Bucky’s grand plans boiled away when he finally sat down next to his friend. It wasn’t that he didn’t know what he wanted to tell Steve, but that he didn’t know where to start. He blushed and stammered, but finally settled on an apology. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to happen like that.”

Steve kept staring at his soup. “You did mean for it to happen, though?”

“No. If I had my way, you would have differentiated as an alpha like you wanted to. Maybe I would have been an omega so that we could be together.”

“But you were already an alpha, a part of you must have wanted what happened.”

Bucky sighed, disappointed that Steve would think so little of him. Wasn’t he supposed to be Steve’s hero? Wasn’t Steve supposed to have faith in him? “Hey, I’m your friend, remember? I want you to be happy and I want us to keep being friends. If you had differentiated as an alpha we would still be friends. But you said once that if you were an alpha and I was an omega you wouldn’t want to _just_ be friends. I wanted that before I differentiated and I still do. It doesn’t matter that the situation is the reverse of what we thought it would be. It can be like we talked about. Both of us can get jobs and we can get by. It won’t be a glamorous life, but we’ll be together.”

Steve looked absolutely distraught. He grabbed Bucky’s hands and Bucky hated that he did it, but he instinctively looked around to make sure the Mother Maria had not snuck back unexpectedly to observe the affection. “Bucky,” Steve whispered. “I’m not an omega.”

“But Steve, I smelled your heat. You were . . .”

“I’m _not_ an omega, okay? So I went into heat. So my body’s fertile. It’s not who I _am_. I’m an alpha. My stupid, sickly body doesn’t know how to do it right, but I’m an alpha.” There were tears in Steve’s eyes and his voice shook with conviction. “I’m not going to get a quaint little omega job or marry a nice alpha who will take me away from this place only to chain me to him with pregnancy and a brood of kids.”

Bucky was in no way expecting Steve’s denial to go so far. He knew that it extended deep, but they had both experienced incontrovertible evidence that Steve was an omega and now they had to figure out how to proceed. Denying it didn’t do any good. It was a fact. “Steve, I don’t want that to happen to you either.” Bucky had no intention of forcing Steve into a job he didn’t want. They would probably need to marry eventually if they wanted to live together outside of the orphanage, but Bucky didn’t care about marriage in and of itself. He just wanted Steve to not leave Bucky for another alpha, not until Bucky could earn enough to support him. “And you know I don’t just like you because I want your heat or, yuck, babies. I just want you to wait for me, for when we can be together. Will you promise me that you won’t find another alpha? Can you promise me that?”

“I’m not interested in _any_ alphas,” Steve replied.

That was exactly what Bucky wanted to hear.


	4. Looms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Steve realize that they are not each other's only options.

Bucky had gotten the job at the textile factory and successfully hid it for long enough that Mother Maria didn’t bother to try to stop him (even though it was illegal to employ underaged kids). Bucky started on the factory floor, tending to four looms at a time. It was boring, relentless work that required him to stay on his feet from four in the afternoon until midnight, but it was better for Bucky than for the omega immigrants that he worked with, who worked four 12-hour shifts a week, many doing so while pregnant. Bucky had special permission from Mr. Patterson to work less due to school. There were a few orphans and other migrant children who also worked on the factory floor, but as far as Bucky knew, they didn’t go to school. He just took the subway after school let out, kept his head down and worked through the night. 

Meanwhile, Steve had been so helpful to Brother Charles handling accounting for the orphanage and as a typist that Brother Charles had found him an after-school job as a typist for a newspaper. He was fascinated by the news, but his only work was typing out official correspondence for the editors, so it wasn’t really news at all. Steve still helped Brother Charles on Saturdays, but because Sunday was Bucky’s only day off, they would either sell candies on the bridge or go on what Bucky increasing began to think of as dates. They would go to the movies or to the beach or for a picnic in the park and once they even went to Coney Island, but Steve throwing up on the Cyclone made that less of a success. Steve always insisted on paying his share and if anybody asked them, was quick to insist that they weren’t a couple (Bucky was just grateful that he was no longer telling people that he wasn’t an omega). Bucky increasingly understood why people wooed omegas this way. It wasn’t all about prying open the omega’s legs; Bucky liked going on dates too. He liked it enough that it didn’t matter that Steve couldn’t see it as wooing.

The one thing Steve wouldn’t do was dance. Rockafeller’s hosted a few formal cotillions each year and even though it was the only opportunity Steve would get to see Bucky’s school, he refused to come as Bucky’s date. Bucky always ended up dancing with some of the omegas from their sister school - the ones desperate enough for attention that it didn’t matter Bucky was an orphan.

They had snuck into some of the local music clubs even though they were too young to attend, but Steve had been content to listen to the music and watch people in the crowd in order to sketch them later. If they had gone out on the dance floor they probably would have been tossed out anyway. 

Bucky understood that Steve didn’t want to officially date. Even though Bucky had already moved into one of the alpha apartments provided for by the Church, Mother Maria still kept a close eye on them and Bucky didn’t want to endanger Steve’s place at Our Lady of Mercy. He certainly had no interest in breeding yet, so it would help keep temptation at bay. 

In fact, he had left the orphanage earlier than necessary because of it. One of the omegas or one of the monks or nuns was always in heat, but the omega quarantine room was constructed in excess of government standards - it was one of the few areas (other than God, of course) in which the Church had more expertise in than the government. But while Bucky could pass by the omega ward most days and feel absolutely nothing, the days when Steve was in heat had Bucky curled in the corner of the kitchens, as far away from the quarantine room as possible inside the building. Thanks to a bond formed during Bucky’s punishment all those years ago, the cook never told Mother Maria about it. Sister Madeline would come sometimes and just hold Bucky while he shivered and shook with the desire for the boy his body said was his mate.

Steve’s poor health meant that his heats were erratic, but they lasted only a day and a half and occurred a few times a year instead of in the usual 2-month cycle. But it would only be a matter of time before Mother Maria noticed that Bucky’s body had begun to sync with Steve and if she did, he had no doubt that she would quarantine them from each other long enough for that bond to break. 

It was safer for Bucky to move into the small one-room apartment in the Church’s transitional alpha housing that he shared with Phyllis and Bobby. Bobby had grown into a tough, sturdy man who had dropped out of school to work the night shift down by the docks. He slept in their one double bed during the daytime with Pablo, a fellow dock worker who they rented to under the table. Bucky and Phyllis both went to school and worked in the factories from the afternoon until midnight. They shared the bed from one in the morning until dawn and then woke up to do it all again. Each of the four took turns cooking, every other day in the winter and every day in the summer because they couldn’t afford an ice-box.

None of them had time for omegas or needed the apartment for much more than sleeping and cooking. Bobby and Pablo lived on the edge with the meager pay of a dockwoker, but Bucky could have afforded his own apartment if he didn’t have Steve to worry about. It wasn’t a good life, but as Bucky tried not to fall asleep during his classes he reminded himself that it would all pay off one day, when Steve turned eighteen and they could finally be together. 

The other alphas at Rockafeller’s told stories of the mythical “easy” omegas who would consent to petting and kissing and even sex, so long as it wasn’t during their heats. Of course, most of Bucky’s classmates were still too young to earn the attention of any kind of omega and because they weren’t orphans, their parents kept much tighter control on their whereabouts. Bonnie lamented that Bucky had all the opportunity in the world to meet an eligible omega. Bucky didn’t think Bonnie had any idea how it was to actually have to work for one’s living. When she pointed out that Bucky had certainly spent enough time with Steve that he was probably owed at least a kiss, Bucky just rolled his eyes.

Steve wasn’t like that. He was the opposite of “easy.” Much to Bucky’s relief, Steve wouldn’t even attend the omega socials that the orphanage put on - not even for a the sirloin steak that they had served at the last one. Steve had stayed true to his word of not even looking at another alpha. Steve was known for steadfastly keeping his word, so Bucky wasn’t surprised.

After the near miss of Steve’s heat, Bucky had been determined to never be the initiator between them. Things had been tense after they finished with Mother Maria’s punishment - awkward in a way they had never been. At first Steve flinched if Bucky moved too quickly towards him, which Bucky could understand. Steve was already smaller and weaker and Bucky had not been in control of himself. If he were Steve, he’d probably be a little skittish too.

Even though they hadn’t kissed again, Bucky took solace in the fact that Steve would take Bucky’s hand while they were walking and sometimes wrap his arms around Bucky while Bucky was sitting down (Steve was too small to easily manage it when Bucky was standing). He’d even cuddle with Bucky on a park bench or in the movie theater. In a way, Bucky was glad for it. He didn’t think that he could stop at just kissing if they started with it again. One thing that Bucky had learned since differentiation was that kiss was no longer just a kiss. It was a prelude to other things. Those other things were a lot easier to not think about when Steve wasn’t around and certainly were easier to not think about when Steve didn’t kiss him. 

Bucky had a rare weekday off today (Mr. Patterson had traded Bucky’s shifts in order to cover a gap caused by a recent firing). He thought Bucky was attending the school cotillion, but Bucky had decided that he would take Steve out for a steak dinner in recompense for the one that Steve had missed at the last omega social. 

When Bucky arrived at the orphanage, Steve wasn’t waiting for him out front like he usually did. Despite Steve’s entreaties that the other kids who had eventually differentiated as omegas would want to see Bucky too, he always gave in to Bucky’s wariness of Mother Maria and met him at the door.

Bucky was forced to ring the old brass bell, huddled near the front gate with his hands tucked into his pockets against the cold. He couldn’t help but worry. Bucky had gotten used to the signs that Steve was coming down with something, so it probably wasn’t a cold and once Steve had differentiated as an omega, he’d been spared the bullying and was treated to rude remarks and wolf whistles instead. 

Luckily, Bucky didn’t have the time to work himself into a full panic before Brother Franklin opened the door. He and Bucky had gotten along even less after Bucky differentiated, but now that Bucky no longer lived at Our Lady of Mercy, he apparently rated a warm smile. “Praise the lord,” he said. “I was hoping you’d have the time to drop by today.”

This did little to reassure Bucky that Steve was okay. “What’s wrong? Has something happened to Steve?”

Brother Franklin shook his head, making the fat folds of his chin jiggle unattractively. Even though Bucky knew it was a side effect of the treatment the Church used to permanently remove the fertility of omegas that wished it, it still disgusted him. “Oh, no, nothing has happened to him. Well, nothing yet.” At Bucky’s continued alarm, Brother Franklin fumbled. “And nothing bad will happen, in any case. It is for his own good. He’s just afraid.”

Steve was afraid? Bucky doubted it. Despite his small stature, Steve was the bravest person that Bucky had ever met. He rose to each challenge with such dedication and such _faith_ that Bucky could hardly believe he was human. If he was scared, whatever it was would probably make Bucky shit his pants.

Brother Franklin had grabbed Bucky’s arm in that fatherly way he’d always had since Bucky was a child, completely ignoring the fact that Bucky was an alpha living on his own with a full time job and should not be manhandled by an omega. Bucky imagined that his parents might have treated him the same, had they survived. 

“What is Steve afraid of?” Bucky asked, when it seemed as though Brother Franklin has traded speaking for a fast, ungainly waddle through the grounds and up to the orphanage building. 

“The omega social of all things,” Brother Franklin replied once they reached the front door. He was huffing and puffing the cold air out in frozen clouds and his pale cheeks were flushed, but he looked genuinely concerned. “Most of the omegas look forward to it. They worry about their clothes and their hair and whether or not any of the alphas will like them, but it’s just worry, not fear. Steve has been refusing to attend, as I’m sure you know.”

Bucky nodded. Steve had been dead-set against it.

“He’s so small,” Brother Franklin continued. “Most of the alphas would probably think we were pushing an underaged omega at them anyway, so we indulged him. But he’s almost sixteen now and even though he still looks young, the alphas all tell me that he smells mature. If it were up to me, I’d let him alone. He has a job now and he pays for his own medicines and clothes and school supplies and eats as many meals as he can in the city, not to mention helping with the cooking and the cleaning when he can and he and Brother Charles do the books. He even fills in teaching the younger students if one of us is feeling ill. I’d keep him here if I thought I could get him to take vows, but Mother Maria is determined to push him out into the world. She has made it a mission find a good alpha that will take care of him. She thinks he is intelligent enough to appeal to a higher class and his daintiness is the proclivity of some.”

Bucky grit his teeth. Steve already had a good alpha. Even if Bucky was just an orphan, he was already proving that he could work hard and manage a household as a sixteen-year-old. He only needed time to build himself into a great man - the kind of man Steve deserved.

Brother Franklin took a deep breath and then wrinkled his nose. “Dear me, you reek of territoriality, boy. You must calm yourself before the head mother sniffs you out.”

Bucky nodded.

“Sister Madeline has always wished to see the two of you together, as has Brother Charles. I have thus far refused to take sides, but I can tell you that Mother Maria has given Steve little choice when it comes to the socials. She cannot force him to marry any of the alphas, but Steve is to attend the socials and at least pretend to enjoy the company of alphas or he will be forced to find his own lodging.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Bucky protested. “Omegas have always been allowed to stay at the orphanage until they find an alpha. Franny stayed until she was _nineteen_.”

“Ah,” Brother Franklin replied, “but those omegas have been looking for alphas during that time. Franny was allowed to stay because her intended alpha died suddenly and she begged us to let her stay and keep attending the socials. It is our job to help shepherd you into the world, not to be a boarding house to omegas who already have intended alphas.” He looked pointedly at Bucky. 

“And why does ‘shepherding us into the world’ mean finding a spouse for an omega and dumping us out at age sixteen for an alpha?” Bucky couldn’t help but spit out.

“Alphas are meant to be strong, independent and decisive. They must earn a faithful omega through dedication and hard work. It does no good to coddle them when it is the world that molds the best alphas. Omegas are a counterpoint by nature. We cannot be as gentle to ours as they deserve, but we can do our best to keep the world from sullying them.”

Brother Franklin had been spouting the same dogma the entire time Bucky had been at Our Lady of Mercy, so Bucky shouldn’t have been surprised. Hell, he shouldn’t have even bothered to listen. But this nonsense had never angered Bucky as much as it did now. But then again, it had always been what the Church believed, something that Brother Charles and Sister Madeline and Mother Maria along with Brother Franklin all believed with their whole hearts. But outside of religious lessons, it was mere background - the Church was providing a home for orphaned children, not a seminary and the Catholic stuff just got lost somewhere in the shuffle. But this time was different because this time he was talking about Steve and Steve wasn’t meant to be hidden away from the world. He wasn’t weak or delicate in spirit, despite his physical condition and no matter what the Church said, Bucky didn’t think that made him a bad omega. It only made Bucky love him more.

“Just let me talk to him,” Bucky snapped.

“You’ll convince him to attend the socials?” Brother Franklin asked hopefully.

Bucky rolled his eyes. “You think I can convince Steve to do anything he doesn’t want to do?”

Brother Franklin sighed. “He’s always been stubborn as a mule. But at least he will listen to you. Look, I know the alpha in you doesn’t want competition, but if you truly trust his love for you, you will let him go and at least see what other alphas are available.”

Bucky grit his teeth. He hated when Brother Franklin pretended to know all about alphas and omegas when he himself had eschewed it all in favor of a god that in all likelihood didn’t exist. It wasn’t about trusting Steve. Bucky absolutely trusted him not to find another alpha. But that didn’t mean he wanted Steve on display for them like a cut of meat at a butcher’s shop - not when Steve himself neither wanted nor needed it. 

Bucky wasn’t allowed in the omega wing, so Brother Franklin lead him to the library where he waited for Steve to be fetched.

When Steve arrived, Bucky could see the clear evidence that he had been crying. His eyes were glassy and the skin around looking swollen and fevered. His cheeks were flushed and he avoided meeting Bucky’s eyes, but Bucky could tell that he made the effort not to cry now. Bucky honestly didn’t care if Steve did cry - he’d seen Steve cry multiple times out of physical pain or sometimes even fear in the depths of an asthma attack. But he would let Steve have his pride and pretend that he hadn’t noticed.

“So,” Bucky said. “I made us a reservation at this little restaurant not far from here. They mostly do meatloaf and pot pies, but they’ve got some steaks on reserve for us. It’s nothing too fancy and not until later, so we can have some time. We could stay here or maybe take a walk.” Bucky didn’t mention that it was freezing outside - Steve hated when he worried.

Steve smiled at Bucky, but the smile was tremulous. “Thanks, Buck. It’ll be nice to get out of here.”

Even though Bucky was trying his best to ignore Steve’s current problem, he obviously didn’t do a good job of hiding his panicked look of shock because Steve chuckled and replied. “Oh, Bucky, I didn’t mean for good. I meant for tonight.” He looked down at his hands self-consciously. The way Steve’s hands fidgeted made them seem like birds that might startle and flutter out of his lap any moment. “I guess that means Brother Franklin told you.”

Bucky nodded.

“I don’t disagree with the idea of the omega socials,” Steve continued. Bucky would let him pretend that he hadn’t constantly been railing against them and the idea that the best way to help an omega was to marry them off. “I mean, it’s hard for omegas to find work nowadays,” Steve spoke as though omegas working had _ever_ been easy, “and the Church can’t exactly give us fancy clothes and send us out on the town while we’re still their wards. I understand that the omega socials are the ticket out of here for some of the others, I really do. But I’m not one of them. I have a job. I’m doing my best not to be a burden on the orphanage. Why can’t Mother Maria just leave me alone?”

Bucky sighed. He knew why and Steve was smart enough to have figured it out himself. But Steve always wanted to believe the best in people. “It’s because of me.” Bucky stared down at his hands. Even though he didn’t believe in God, Bucky tried to be a good person. He tried to be compassionate and kind and giving and be the man that Steve saw when he looked at him with bright, expectant eyes. But he was selfish in this. Maybe Mother Maria was right and Steve would better off without him, but Bucky couldn’t bring himself to do it. That being said, he wasn’t going to lie to Steve about his intentions.

“I know that Mother Maria hasn’t always been in your corner,” Steve argued, ignoring Bucky’s eyeroll at his delicate phrasing, “but she has always taken good care of me, even when she didn’t have to. If she hadn’t gotten one of the doctors from the omega socials to give me free treatment, I would have died. And she’s always encouraged my art.”

Bucky couldn’t help but pull Steve against him, teasing. “Oh, Steve, I love you, but boy are you naive. It’s a wonder you were never murdered by a lunatic peddling treats. Mother Maria is sending you to those things because she doesn’t want you to end up with me.”

Steve looked confused. “Well, you’re my best friend, Buck, so I don’t know why she’d expect us to stop seeing each other, even if you don’t live here anymore.”

“Yeah, well, in case you haven’t noticed, after differentiation, not a whole lot of alphas and omegas stay best friends.”

Steve gave Bucky an encouraging smile. “Well, we’re the exception, then. I don’t see what this has to do with the omega socials.”

“She thinks you can do better than me, Steve,” Bucky admitted. “And she’s right: you can do better. That doesn’t mean I won’t fight for you, but if you want to go to the socials and find yourself a husband, I don’t want you to feel bad for me.”

Steve gave an exasperated sigh, grabbing Bucky’s chin to force him to meet Steve’s eyes. “Bucky, you’re a million times better than any of those old farts who would basically buy an orphaned omega at the socials. I’m not going to find a husband and suddenly abandon you. You know me better than that.”

Bucky couldn’t help but smile, a warm, delicate feeling growing in his chest like the first bloom after a long thaw. He couldn’t help but lean forward and press a quick kiss to Steve’s lips. He wouldn’t hope for more while Steve was still under Mother Maria’s eye and under threat of being kicked out. 

Steve looked shocked for a moment, his fingers brushing his lips where Bucky’s had touched his. Bucky grinned at him, grabbing Steve’s other hand and squeezing. “Look, Steve, if you can’t take it here, you can always come live with me. Obviously we couldn’t keep staying in the Church’s alpha housing, but Mr. Patterson also keeps a tenement for his newer immigrant employees and he’s looking for an English-speaking couple to move in there to look after things. But, I also think we could save up a lot more if you stayed here until you’re of age. And, you know, it’ll be good to have a safety net. If dancing with a bunch of old farts a few times a year is all you have to do for free housing, I’d say take it.”

Steve grinned, the tear tracks finally drying. “You’re right, Bucky. Mother Maria is only doing what she thinks is best for me. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to let her think she’s helping, especially after everything she’s done for me. And in a few years, we’ll both have some money saved - enough to share an apartment, assuming a cute omega hasn’t snatched you up.”

“Hey, I’m not going to let another omega get to me. Don’t worry.”

Steve shrugged. “Like you said, I’m not going to be mad if you do find someone. You’re an alpha, Bucky. You have instincts.”

“Yeah, well we’re not just animals, you know? What makes us human is that we can master those instincts for something worthwhile.” Bucky decided it would be too sappy to point out that Steve was definitely something worthwhile. “Now, what do you say, punk? You feel up to that steak dinner I promised you?”

Steve grinned back. He even put his arm around Bucky’s waist once they were away from the orphanage and Mother Maria’s watchful eye. Bucky didn’t really care that it was normally the alpha that did that; he was just glad to have Steve close.

***

The next omega social came and went. Steve was fairly tight-lipped about it - probably afraid of provoking Bucky’s alpha instincts, what little he had of them - but Sister Madeline loved to gossip and told Bucky how Steve had been a surprise hit. 

They had worried about Steve’s sickliness, but apparently his petite frame appealed to a lot of the kinds of alphas who were looking to marry an orphanage omega. That made sense to Bucky but also worried him. There were two kinds of people who would look for orphanage kids for a spouse: the kind who wanted a spouse who didn’t have a family to challenge their control and the bleeding hearts. Bucky didn’t want Steve anywhere near the alphas who were attracted to Steve’s weakness so they could control him and he couldn’t imagine Steve wanting to be a charity case. But at least the bleeding hearts, according to Sister Madeline, appreciated Steve’s intelligence, even though their appreciation was more akin to appreciation of the tricks performed by a trained ape.

So even though Bucky hated being on the receiving end of Steve’s brooding, unhappy mood after the social, he was at least grateful that Steve wouldn’t be falling for any of the creeps who apparently wanted him.

In the meantime, Bucky had received a promotion at the factory. Mr. Patterson had heard from Bonnie that Bucky excelled in his science classes and decided to give him a try working in the machinist’s shop. The looms and the spindles broke down so often and the parts were so expensive to replace that Mr. Patterson kept a staff of two machinists who fixed the broken-down parts and refurbished spares. Of course this meant that all the equipment was nowhere close to factory standards and that the machinists had the ultimate job security because they were the only ones who had any idea how the damned things worked.

Mr. McGregor was getting old, Patterson explained, and he needed an assistant to do the heavy lifting and help with some of the welding work. But really, Bucky was there to learn the workings of the looms so that Patterson had more leverage over his machinists. Patterson hated unions and pretty much any power that his workers might gain. He was a ruthless businessman, but in deference to his daughter, he treated Bucky well.

Bucky wasn’t one of those brickhouses of a male alpha, like the men who worked the docks, but he’d started to put on muscle to fill out his frame. He was athletic and very skilled with his hands and even better with his eyes and ears. After a year working as machinist, he began to be able to _hear_ when there was a problem with the looms.

It wasn’t the boring monotony of the factory floor, but Bucky’s work in the textile plant had been getting tougher - with more competition from down south, even though all the cheap immigrant labor was still concentrated in New York, Mr. Patterson had made all the shifts longer, including Bucky’s. He now spent recess and lunchtime sleeping in whatever empty classroom he could find, no matter how much the other kids wanted to get him on their team for football or lacrosse. And now that winter had set in, their little dumpy apartment suffered from the cold. As one of Patterson’s favorites (and one of the few English-speaking employees) Bucky was allowed first pick of scraps to take home. The other alphas might have laughed at the bulky, uneven quilt he sewed on an old machine that was in the factory’s machinist shop for repair, but it didn’t matter that sewing was the omega’s work so long as Bucky and his friends managed to survive the winter.

Bobby and Phyllis were both courting omegas - or at least trying to. Even though they both tried to explain that Bucky was waiting for his “true love,” Pablo didn’t seem to understand the idea and would occasionally try to drag Bucky out for a night of drinking and carousing. Unfortunately, it took an accident for Pablo to finally get that Bucky already had an omega.

It started with a strange noise coming from one of the overhead spools - a creak and then a crack. Before Bucky even realized it, he was running across the floor and hurling himself at the pregnant omega working the loom beneath. There was a crash, followed by pain, and the panicked screams of the omega as she spoke rapidly in Polish from beneath him. Bucky’s left shoulder burned where something was pressing against it, but Bucky kept himself braced over the omega on the floor, watching dazedly as she cradled the small bump at her belly. Bucky idly speculated that she’d have to stop working soon - but there was always another immigrant to take her place. The world spun around him, his thoughts liquid and disjointed.

There were loud shouts of the men on the line organizing themselves. The workers were almost entirely omegas, but most omega males were almost as strong as alphas. Soon the terrible burden lifted from Bucky’s shoulder, but the ache remained, a stabbing throb that worsened when kind hands scooped him up and helped him stumble over to the stairs leading up to the office, where Bucky could finally sit down. There were no seats on the factory floor. The workers weren’t allowed to sit. Bucky knew why, somewhere deep in the recesses of his confused mind, but he couldn’t seem to call the information up.

“Holy Jesus,” Mr. Patterson’s voice. “What in the hell happened here?”

“We got called out to the floor to look at a busted machine,” Mr. McGregor supplied. “The boy’s good at them little repairs, so I brought him along. He must’ve heard something, because he jumped in front of this here dame just in time. This thing would’ve decapitated her.”

Mr. Patterson nodded, scrutinizing the mess of yarn and machine parts that made up that section of the factory. Bucky sucked in deep gulping breaths in hopes of warding off the pain, but his shoulder throbbed mercilessly despite how he tried to cradle his now rapidly-numbing arm against his chest.

A crowd of concerned onlookers had gathered, basically halting operations. Bucky had become a bit of a favorite among the floor omegas. He made little tweaks to their machines the second something felt off in order to avoid costly repairs later on and the single ones always tried their luck with the only American alpha they thought they could talk to. Bucky brushed them off kindly - most were too old and none of them was Steve.

Mr. Patterson stared one moment more before jumping to action. “Back to work!” he shouted. “When the omegas didn’t immediately move he added, “The boy will be fine. I’ll see to him, but we cannot halt production for a little accident like this.”

It was only after a moment of blank stares that the factory foreman stepped in and began yelling out the command in a variety of languages. Soon all that remained of the crowd was Mr. Patterson, Mr. McGregor, and the woman who Bucky had saved. 

“You,” Patterson pointed to the pregnant omega. “Go home for the rest of the day. We won’t be able to fix your station until tomorrow at least. And you,” he pointed to McGregor, “get this mess cleaned up.”

McGregor looked at Patterson doubtfully. “I was going to take the boy to the doctor.”

Patterson rolled his eyes. “With this mess? Tell George that he’s in charge until I get back. I’ll take him myself.”

Mr. Patterson drove a white Cadillac. It was a few years old, from when the factory was booming. The white was impractical, because it only took one drive down to the Garment District to get the thing covered in soot and whatever debris coated the New York streets, but Mr. Patterson was practical only when it came to business. Bucky had ridden in the Cadillac a few times already, when Mr. Patterson had stopped into the school to do something for Bonnie and was heading back to work afterwards. He had never noticed how much it bumped and jostled on the uneven roads. 

Mr. Patterson ignored the whines and moans of pain that Bucky couldn’t help each time his arm was moved. This was going to dig into his savings, big time, even with the discounts Old Doc Benson gave Bucky and Steve on Major Phillip’s behalf. He started to give Mr. Patterson directions when the man waved Bucky aside.

“No, no, that won’t be necessary, boy. I’m taking you over to my house. Our family physician will see to you there. Bonnie can make herself useful for once and help tend to you.”

Bucky blushed at the idea of Bonnie seeing him like this. They were no special friends. Bucky didn’t have too many friends at Rockafeller’s. He was good at sports when he did have time to play, so the athletic kids were nice enough to him and he was the best in the class at math and science and in need of money, so he got to know a lot of kids through tutoring. He was well-liked by enough people that nobody bothered to tease him anymore. It also helped that thanks to street fighting skills that these privileged alphas had never needed to learn, Bucky had won every dominance challenge ever put to him. So even though Bucky had no real enemies, he didn’t have the time to make many friends either and even if he had, he’s not sure Bonnie Patterson would be one of them. 

Mr. Patterson chuckled. “Ah, the dominance games of the young alphas. I remember those days. But there’s no weakness in an injury gained from saving an omega, particularly a pregnant one. And there’s no shame in accepting the aid of a superior alpha,” he added to staunch any protest Bucky might have given about letting Patterson pay for the doctor.

Patterson’s doctor was nothing like old Doc Benson and his smile-worn wrinkles and kind eyes. She was a middle-aged alpha with dark hair and a permanently worried look. She probed at Bucky’s aching shoulder and shone a light into his eyes before announcing that he had a broken collarbone and sustained a mild head injury. She set the bone with brutal efficiency and showed Bonnie how to tie Bucky’s arm into a proper sling for this type of injury. There wasn’t much that could be done if the head injury turned out to be serious, but she commanded the family to keep an eye on him for the next day at least.

The bedroom they put Bucky in wasn’t as opulent as some of the photos Bucky had seen of real mansions, but it was clean and airy, with a large bay window and a four poster bed with the softest mattress Bucky had ever slept on. His head hadn’t hit the lacy pillow for more than a few minutes before Bucky fell into exhausted slumber. 

Bucky didn’t wake until the sun had set and risen again. In the early morning light, he heard the muted thump of someone putting something down on the bedside table. Bucky had never had a bedside table before, so he had no idea what it could be. He forced his eyes to squint open, levering himself up from the softness of the mattress to find a young girl in a lacy white dress. Her hair was the same burnished gold color as Bonnie’s and her eyes the same bright blue, but her features were softer where Bonnie’s were sharp and her hair was curled into tight ringlets, tied up by a deep green bow instead of flowing and wild the way Bonnie wore hers. 

“Oh,” the girl said, “you’re awake. Shall I fetch someone?” Everything from the coquettish way she fluttered her eyelashes to to crisp diction to her softly spoken words spoke of the fancy omega schools that the Rockafeller’s students were sometimes lucky enough to interact with. None of the omegas ever bothered with Bucky, but they would smile at him and ask him about some of the other alphas in his class. Bonnie, with her tall, athletic body and her predatory smile and flirtatious blue eyes, was especially popular with the omegas. 

“Are you supposed to fetch someone?” Bucky asked dumbly. 

The girl smiled. “I don’t suppose so. Father instructed me to let you sleep as long as you needed. He left for the factory already. Bonnie will let the school know that you won’t be in today. Perhaps I should fetch her to keep you company before she leaves?”

Bucky shook his head. “Bonnie and I never talk much,” he admitted. “I think you could probably keep me company better.” 

The girl gave a crisp nod, curtseying in the traditional style before extending her hand. “I’m Mary Anne.”

“James Barnes,” Bucky said, blushing a little as he offered his nickname. “People usually call me Bucky.”

Mary Anne tilted her head to the side in a swift, birdlike movement. “Why do you let them call you that if it doesn’t please you?”

There was a dig at his alphaness somewhere in there, but Bucky decided to just be honest. “It doesn’t bother me usually. I’m an orphan and I work in a factory and it suits me. What doesn’t suit me is this world,” he gestured to the lacy pillows and the velvet sitting chair and polished wood nightstand. “A kid named Bucky doesn’t belong here.”

Mary Anne laughed, a high, tinkling sound like a crystal chandelier rattling. Even her laugh was probably carefully trained. “And why not?” she asked. “My sister has had special tutors and training ever since she was young and she’ll be lucky if she can finish whatever college father sends her off to. You are an orphan and yet you earned your place at one of the best alpha academies in New York. You are in the top of your class and you work nearly a full shift at Father’s factory as a machinist when you aren’t even of age. Tell me who deserves it more?”

“How do you know all that?” Bucky asked. They’d just met.

“Oh, father tells tales. He uses you as an example to make Bonnie feel guilty.”

“Does it work?”

“Not at all. My sister excised her sense of shame long ago. We’ll see if she can even make it to college without getting some poor omega pregnant. And even if she does make it to college, she wants to be a journalist of all things. No matter how much father tries to use you to show her how she could get into the business, I doubt it will happen.”

“My omega wants to be a journalist,” Bucky blurted out, already feeling guilty for calling Steve his omega. They’d never discussed it, but to Bucky, calling Steve just his ‘friend’ was further from the truth than Bucky would like to tell Mary Anne. Maybe it was part of what they they taught in those fancy omega schools, but there was something about her that demanded honesty.

“You have an omega?” She seemed disappointed, but covered it well. “He or she must be very lucky.”

“Well, I don’t know. I think he could do better, honestly. And he’s not really my omega - not yet. We haven’t . . .” he trailed off with a blush.

“You haven’t lain together?” Mary Anne supplied with a matter-of-fact determination that seemed at odds to her previous coquettishness. She was braver than Bucky when it came to alpha/omega relations. Bucky and his roommates could go on about all the things they’d love to do to an omega one day, but Bucky had never discussed these things with an omega before. He thought he and Steve were close enough to talk about them, but talk of sex made Steve squirrelly and vacant, so Bucky avoided it at all costs.

“No. We haven’t done much physically, to tell you the truth. But when he turns eighteen, we’re going to move in together, assuming he doesn’t find someone better first.”

“Oh, forgive my manners,” Mary Anne exclaimed. “We’ve been talking while your breakfast is growing cold.” That explained the tray she’d put on the night table. “Let me help you.” Bucky knew he should have felt embarrassed, letting an omega help him to sit up and stuff more pillows than Bucky had ever seen on one bed behind him, but something about Mary Anne made him feel comfortable. She seemed like someone who could not only keep a secret, but someone who would treasure a show of vulnerability rather than judge him for it. The way her brow creased in worried sympathy made her look more beautiful rather than less. “The doctor left some laudanum if the pain is too great.”

Bucky shook his head. Maybe he would take some later if he needed to rest, but right now he felt famished and laudanum always made him queasy. Still, even with the tray on his lap, it was difficult to manage with one hand. Mary Anne ended up cutting up his toast and bacon for him, sitting on the bed, with her skirt tucked elegantly around her. 

“Now that food’s taken care of,” she continued, “I’d like to hear more of why you think your omega will find someone better.”

Bucky shrugged. “He grew up in the orphanage like me. But he’s so much more - he’s the kindest person I’ve ever known and smart and creative. He has this wry sense of humor but he’s so genuine all the time that a lot of people don’t see it. Except, it turns out that they _do_ see something. At least the alphas at the omega social do. I’ve loved Steve my whole life, but we’re both going to have to scrimp and save just to make a decent life together. If he finds one of those alphas to love and take care of him, I’m not sure he _should_ pick me.”

Mary Anne seemed to scrutinize Bucky as he took the opportunity to finish off his breakfast. She lifted the tray away deftly and placed it back on the nightstand. This time she sat herself by the head of his bed, where she could hold his good hand. “Forgive my impertinence. It’s not common for alphas and omegas to talk this way.” She looked shy for the first time since they’d met. “Especially just after meeting.” 

Bucky had no idea what was impertinent and what was not. He’d never had a father or mother to teach him about courting. “Hey, I’m just some orphaned kid. How am I supposed to know what’s impertinent? I like that you speak your mind. If they’ve taught you otherwise, it’s a damn shame.”

Mary Anne’s smile was genuine this time - more like Bonnie’s wild grin than the demure upturn of her lips from earlier. “I’m happy you feel that way, but I think there’s something you aren’t telling me. You said yourself that you don’t feel right for this world. What makes you think this omega of yours feels any differently? If you are not tempted by it, then why should he be?”

“I’m not tempted by the lifestyle, no,” Bucky agreed. “But I’d sure like to earn enough money to live in a house and not a tenement, to eat steak instead of bread and stew, to feel like I could provide for my omega and for our children if we have any. I don’t expect you to understand.”

Mary Anne took the insult with a sad smile. “No, I don’t suppose I can. But I can try to empathize. I take for granted how good my life has been up until this point. I have wanted for nothing. But all omegas share your fears. As vulnerable as you are to the whims of fate, we are to the whims of our alphas. My father is good to me, but the alpha I marry might not be. He or she might wish to keep me cloistered from the world and the things I love, mistreat my children, lay with others, become a lush or a gambler and there will be nothing I can do to change my fortunes. So, yes, I would give up the lace and the fancy parties and the fine jewelry, so long as I knew that I would live in a clean house with a full belly and an alpha who cherishes me. So tell me, if you do not expect your omega to be swayed by wealth, then why do you fear?”

Bucky sighed. “Are you a church-going girl?”

“Are you asking if I’m church-going or god-fearing?” she asked with a wry smile.

“Church-going.”

“In that case, yes, I am.”

“Then you know the story of Adam and Eve?”

She nodded.

“And all this business about temptation and sin?”

Another nod.

“I’m not sure that I believe that those things will land you in hell,” Bucky hedged. He wasn’t entirely ready to come clean about his atheism. “But I believe that I have lust in my heart. I think it’s normal to have it.”

Mary Anne was solemn. “I have it too,” she whispered, leaning forward a little, enraptured.

“Yes, well, I understand all the reasons why we have to resist temptation - not just hell, but practical reasons too. But I feel like I’m drowning in temptation sometimes. It’s like my love for him is overflowing and it takes every ounce of will that I have to not give in. I lay awake at night thinking about the things we’ll do when we can finally be together and I want it so bad.”

“You’re in love with him,” Mary Anne stated. “Of course it’s hard to be apart.”

"But that’s the thing,” Bucky confessed. “It’s not hard for him. I don’t want him to suffer, but I can’t help but wonder if he loves me as much as I love him. I know that omegas are different - that you aren’t as ruled by lust outside your heats, but it was Eve that was tempted by the snake. You must feel _some_ desire. There must be _some_ slips in your control.”

Mary Anne gave an enigmatic smile. “I don’t know about your omega,” she licked her lips. They were plump and red, her cheeks flushed and her skin glowing with health. Bucky could practically smell her fertility. “But I feel desire. I feel temptation. There is a line that I won’t cross, for my family and for my honor, but I want to. And I let my control slip.” She leaned forward. For the first time, Bucky noticed how well the bodice of her dress emphasized her bosom. Their combined scent was heady. “I let it slip just enough,” she finished, standing and rearranging her skirt. “I can’t tell you what to do about your omega, but if I had an alpha like you, I’d be sure to give him a taste of what he has to look forward to on the wedding night.”

With that, Mary Anne grabbed the empty breakfast tray and bustled out of the room. “I’ll have the maid bring you your laudanum. I think you should rest now, before father gets it in his head to put you back to work.”

***

Mary Anne’s prediction turned out to be correct. Mr. Patterson came back that evening and gave Bucky a ride back to his building, telling him that he expected to see him in to work the next day. He assured Bucky that he’d be pulled out of the machine shop for the moment. He’d be helping out with the accounting until he felt well enough to shadow the foremen for a while. When Bucky asked why he couldn’t go back to the machinist shop once he started to feel better, Mr. Patterson had copied his daughter’s enigmatic smile and replied, “I see potential in you, boy. You learn the business and who knows, you could be my manager one day.”

Bucky smiled all the way up the narrow grimy steps to his apartment. He knocked on the door instead of fumbling for his keys. He had no idea how he was going to go to work and school tomorrow if he was still so exhausted from his injuries. 

But the veil of tiredness disappeared when he saw Steve on the other side of the door, looking worried but relieved to see Bucky. He hugged Bucky tight to him, even his weak grip enough to jar Bucky’s arm painfully. “Thank god you’re alright,” Steve gushed.

“Very pretty,” Pablo said, indicating Steve. “Very preocupado.”

“Yes, he was so worried,” Bobby added. “He’s been pacing around here all afternoon. After you didn’t come back last night, Phyllis was dumb enough to ask him during classes.” Unlike Bucky, Phyllis still attended Our Lady of Mercy’s school. Even though Steve was a year younger than Phyllis, the dwindling number of students in the upper years meant that they were in the same class. “He’s been here pacing like this all afternoon. Phyllis is lucky she had to work. He’s been crazed and I had to bribe the super to let an omega stay here after dark. You owe me big time.”

Bucky nodded. He’d be owing Bobby for a lot more by the time his collar bone healed. Steve was still pressed against Bucky’s chest. Pablo raised an eyebrow eloquently.

“We go work now,” Pablo said, motioning to Bobby. “You make yourself good.”

“Yeah, feel better,” Bobby added, swatting Pablo away as he was practically dragged out the door.

Bucky let Steve make tea and ladle some soup out of the pot that Bobby and Pablo had left on the stove.

“What happened?” Steve asked, his eyes wide as he scrutinized the complex sling that Mary Anne had helped him secure after taking a bath in the luxurious clawfoot bathtub in the Patterson’s house. 

“There was an accident at work. I pushed a pregnant omega out of the way of a falling spooler. It’s a broken collarbone.” Instead of looking suitably impressed by Bucky’s alphaness at rescuing an omega, Steve looked horrified.

“That place is dangerous, Bucky. Patterson hires people who don’t speak English and barely know what they’re doing. You said it yourself, the equipment is old and held together by you and McGregor’s Jerry rigs. It’s not a safe work environment. My paper just printed an article on . . .”

Bucky held his good hand up, interrupting Steve. “All work for alphas is dangerous, Steve. We need the money, so I have to work there. Mr. Patterson is teaching me the ins and outs of the business. I could be a manager someday.”

“So you can trick a bunch of immigrants into working in an unsafe factory for less than a living wage and then rip most of that money away from them by getting them to live in your own tenement for well above the price that it’s worth?”

Bucky had been so sure that Steve would welcome the news, but he seemed _disappointed_.

“Well, what am I supposed to do, Steve?” Bucky protested. “As a worker I hardly have enough to support myself, let alone get a house or raise a family.”

Steve looked even more disappointed. “Yes, but you and me together, we make enough to get our own apartment. If I get promoted at the paper and you get Patterson to pay you as a foreman until you graduate, you can get a scholarship and we could afford to pay for your books and your room and board. Don’t you want to go to the university?”

“Of course I want to go. But there are other things that are just as important. If I make enough money, you could go.”

Steve smiled sadly. “Bucky, I’m an omega. I’m not going to finishing school and even if we could afford it, I couldn’t actually _do_ anything with a degree from Wellesley or Vassar. But you have a future. Why do you want to throw it away? Is money really that important?”

Bucky stared into Steve’s eyes and found no duplicity there. It was an honest question. If Steve loved Bucky enough to shelve his own chances to escape the hard life they’d been born into, why couldn’t he understand that Bucky would do the same for him? “It’s not money, Steve,” Bucky sighed. “I want to be able to take care of you, like a proper alpha.”

Steve looked suddenly shy. “Even if I’m not a proper omega?”

Bucky cupped the back of Steve’s neck with his good hand. “ _Because_ you’re not a proper omega.”

And then he pulled Steve in for a kiss. They hadn’t kissed like this since they were children, but even though they had now differentiated, it still felt innocent somehow. Steve’s mouth was wet and open and he leaned into Bucky, arms carefully wrapped around him in deference to his injury. It was a stark contrast to the desperate way Steve had embraced him earlier.

The kiss seemed to go on for an eternity, but eventually Steve pulled back. “Bucky, you’re dead on your feet. Let me get you to bed.”

Bucky let Steve helped him, but when he tried to pull Steve into bed with him, Steve stood his ground. “Phyllis will be back soon and I need to return to the orphanage.”

Bucky just wanted one more kiss, but Steve was already half out the door before he could protest.

***

Bucky was surprised to see Mary Anne when he arrived at the office the next day. Today she was wearing a deep blue bucket hat and a matching long blue dress that offset her white ermine fur nicely. 

Bucky found himself smiling, happy to see her, even though her presence was unexpected. “You don’t come in often, do you? I’m pretty sure I would have noticed.”

Mary Anne held out her hand for Bucky to kiss - something the orphanage omegas, with their dirty hands, never did. 

“I’m on winter holiday, so father said I should offer you my services turning pages and typing if you needed them while you’re injured. Father used to take me to the office before I differentiated, so I know where everything is. I even learned a fair amount of bookkeeping before he found out I was an omega.”

“Well, from what little I know of you, I’d trust you with the business over Bonnie any day.”

Mary Anne grinned. “Father had such high hopes I’d differentiate as an alpha, because I was the only one who had an interest. He had to pull me out of an alpha school when I differentiated.” Bucky had observed a fair number of such events. Some of the omegas hosted debutante parties as a farewell to their classmates and a reminder of their availability as an omega. Other just disappeared one day never to be seen again. Bucky preferred the ones who waited patiently after school after a week’s absence, tired and sad, but ready to give their former friends a proper goodbye. “I managed to hide my first heat, through some miracle, but when my scent changed there was nothing for it.”

“You could still do this stuff. Your father is the boss so nobody could refuse you.”

Mary Anne laughed, a real laugh this time, deep and almost snorting with glee. “That’s a lark, Bucky. My father is determined that I be a proper lady and a proper lady doesn’t get her hands dirty. She marries a proper Mistress or Gentleman and she doesn’t lift a finger after that, not even to discipline her own children.”

Bucky remembered his previous conversation with Steve. “Well, I don’t want to marry a proper lady, then.”

“Oh?” Mary Anne giggled, leaning forward in her chair in a very unladylike way. “Spin me a beautiful fantasy, Mister Barnes. Tell me of this world where omegas run businesses and spank their own children and dare to be in charge of their own lives.”

Bucky recalled the many conversations he’d had with Steve, the fantasies that they had never dared share with any others. It was a seditious vision, but there was something about the eager way Mary Anne looked at him - like just hearing of this world could fulfill her every desire. She chewed on her lower lip in anticipation and beneath all the finery, her body language was relaxed, undifferentiated, like she was a child following her father to work again, naive and _passionate_.

Bucky had never had anyone look at him with such passion, not even Steve.


	5. Opportunity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky's involvement in the factory life deepens and the inconsistency of Steve's affections begins to make Bucky insecure

Bucky smiled as he made his way up the narrow wrought iron stairs to the office. He’d seen Mary Anne’s mane of blonde curls through the tarnished windows that looked out onto the factory floor. After Bucky’s collarbone healed, he went back to working on the floor as a machinist and a fill-in foreman when one of the regulars needed to miss a shift. Without Bucky’s need of an extra set of hands, Mary Anne came by the factory less frequently. According to her father, she needed to dedicate herself to learning, but in reality, Mary Anne was too smart to be stuck in etiquette lessons and spent most of her free time reading the books that Mr. Patterson had bought for Bonnie. It was more likely that he just wanted to keep her away from the factory world than worry over her joke of an education. 

Because they didn’t get to see each other as often anymore, Bucky relished the time they did have, throwing open the door to the office and enveloping his friend in a hug. Mary Anne had escaped the house without painting her face today and she was wearing a simple green frock with big buttons down the front and a brown leather belt around the waist. Bucky took a moment to breathe in the smell of her fancy bath soaps and the subtle sweet hint that identified her as an omega. 

After a lingering embrace, Mary Anne leaned back, gesturing to the desk covered in envelopes and ledger books. “So, what do you think?”

Bucky scratched his head. Even though he excelled at Math, he was happy to be back on the factory floor getting his hands dirty and not cooped up in the office with the paperwork. “Erm,” he stalled. “It’s very impressive.”

Mary Anne giggled like bells jingling. “No, silly,” she pulled a worn red ledgerbook out of the pile and dropped it in Bucky’s hands. “You actually have to _read_ this.”

Bucky forced himself to focus on the column of numbers and remember the meanings of the different symbols. If anything, his time in the office convinced him that he wasn’t cut out for business. Mary Anne had laid out shift time, wage level, number of workers, productivity and net profit alongside each other for each block of workers on the factory floor. Bucky was surprised to note that the highest profit came from the workers who received the highest wage.

“This is the symbol for earnings, right?” Bucky asked, skeptical.

Mary Anne grinned. “Indeed it is. Remember when you convinced father to let me run a productivity experiment between the different blocks?”

Bucky nodded, remembering the conversation vaguely. He had been pushing Mr. Patterson to let Mary Anne be more involved in the business in any way possible. He always supported whatever she wanted to propose to her father, sometimes without even listening to the proposition.

“Well, after what happened to you, I investigated the number of accidents and their slowdown of production. I interviewed the workers involved. Some were simple mechanical failure, but many of them happened because the workers were tired. So I shortened the shifts on block C to seven hours six days a week instead of twelve hours for three days and hired three extra workers who would fill in so that everyone on the block could have a five minute break every hour. I offered a slight pay raise to help with the transportation costs of coming in every day and organized an omega cooperative in our company housing complex so that the off-shift omegas could take turns watching all the children in an empty apartment that I set up as a child care center. Even with the extra spending, the increase in productivity lead to a five percent increase in overall profits compared to the other blocks.”

“That’s amazing, Mary Anne!” Bucky exclaimed, wrapping Mary Anne up in another hug and twirling her around for good measure. “You found a way to do good without hurting profits.” Bucky had not felt especially guilty up until now, considering that every one of the workers would rather have a risky job than no job at all, but Steve’s comments about worker exploitation had been niggling at him. Bucky was no communist, but some of the orders he had to carry out in his new role as management made a part of him twist and scream. Bucky showed few strong alpha traits and was, for the most part, a follower, but it pained him to have to order omegas to work dangerously hard during pregnancy and risk damaging their children or to turn right around and keep on working after someone lost a finger to one of the machines or to fire anyone who seemed to gain enough understanding of English and American laws to question the conditions in the factory. Bucky was an orphan so he knew better than to feel entitled, but a part of him knew that a lot of what Mr. Patterson was doing was wrong. “Where’d you learn all this stuff?”

Mary Anne grinned. “We had a school assignment to write an essay about an issue affecting society today and to make a presentation about it. No doubt, if we marry well, we will need to aid our spouses in high society, including involvement in social issues. Most of the omegas wrote about frivolities, like access to beauty products for poor omegas and the teaching of Darwinist ideas in the school system. One boy actually made a presentation on the treatment of retired show horses.”

Bucky chuckled. He remembered one of his fellow students complaining about an omega who talked her ear off about just that at the last cotillion.

“I used my library time to look at labor conditions and I used those photographs you helped me take on the factory floor. The headmaster called my father in to talk about my apparent hostility towards our own family business and they both agreed that my punishment should be to research what could be done about such a problem. I don’t think they expected me to find anything, but I convinced mother to take me down to the central library where I found out all the things that they’re doing in Detroit and down south in these textile towns and I wondered why we couldn’t do those same things here in the city.”

Mary Anne’s smile was blinding. Bucky’s hard life had accustomed him to suspicion concerning such unbridled hope. Even though Bucky was used to seeing a similar expression on Steve’s face, Bucky himself never dared to believe that things would be better - instead he quietly made preparations for when they weren’t.

“They don’t let omegas work in the car factories, but they provide more for their workers - they help some of them learn English and they make sure they are of good moral repute. Down south, they keep the workforce in company housing, let them shop at company stores, and provide their health care. They charge for those things, so the workers end up with less in their pockets, but their basic needs are provided for.”

“But everyone is cutting back,” Bucky protested. “Times are hard.”

Mary Anne’s eyes blazed. “Maybe cutting back is the wrong way to go. Moving forward is what we should be doing. You’d think that working more means producing more, but not with our equipment the way it is. I’ve looked at the books and I’ve been in the stores. I ask my dressmaker what she pays for fabric and I even went with her to select it once, where I talked to the man who supplies her store. Even with the improved productivity, we can’t compete with the mills down south in the long term - land and labor are cheaper down there. If we want to survive we have to vertically integrate.”

“What?”

Mary Anne sighed, perturbed by Bucky’s ignorance. “In order to keep up we’ve already moved into more complex and higher quality fabrics, mostly to sell directly to dressmakers and suitmasters. But the real money is in clothing, not fabric. My father has been resisting it for years as the rest of the city leaves us behind making cheap fabric to make cheap clothing. A well-known dressmaker or suitmaster can charge up to $100 for an outfit instead of $20 for something mass-produced. What we need to do is to invest in our workforce - take them from uneducated immigrants into seamstresses and then get some of the most well-known dressmakers and suitmasters to make patterns for us so that we can produce clothes for them - instead of one piece, we can produce a line of two hundred. They can charge almost the same price for each item without having to sew it themselves and even if we split the profits, we can make so much more than we would on the fabric by itself. And, if we train our workers and give them benefits, we can earn their loyalty for a much lower price and improve their lives at the same time.”

It still sounded too good to be true, or too confusing, but Bucky smiled anyway. It was great to see Mary Anne coming up with her own plans, flushed with excitement and bubbling with happiness in such stark contrast to the demure, bashful girl she had been when Bucky first met her. “It sounds like a great plan. Have you told your father?”

Mary Anne’s eyes fell. “I tried to bring it up. But he just tells me not to worry my pretty little head about the business. He says I should just focus on finding myself an alpha - that he’s paying enough for my training and my wardrobe so that I can find someone who will take care of me. He’ll let Bonnie run the business into the ground before he’ll let me say a word about it.”

Bucky sighed. The more time he spent working under Mr. Patterson, the more he became acquainted with his prejudices against omegas. Bucky had learned that the first time Mr. Patterson had asked him about any omegas he was pursuing. Patterson’s laugh at Steve’s very respectable job at the newspaper was all that Bucky needed to hear to determine the kind of man he was. He had no idea why he had expected the man to be any more allowing of the sin of industriousness in his own omega daughter. “Maybe you should start small. Show him what you did with block C and ask him to do the same for the rest of the factory. He believed in you enough to give it a try and he’d be stupid not to take the extra profit.”

“Oh, Bucky,” she lamented, as though Bucky were a dim-witted beast too stupid to understand the workings of the world, “it’s not me he believed in. He gave me a chance because of _you_. Can’t you see? He doesn’t even think I came up with those ideas on my own. He thinks we planned it together and I was just going to talk to the workers in order to organize it.”

“You should have told him that it was your idea. I didn’t even know what you were doing. It wouldn’t be right for me to take credit for it.”

“I didn’t _want_ him to know it was my idea. Getting it done is more important than who came up with the plan. And it’s more important than my father’s prejudices.” Bucky wanted to protest that it was her own father and they should make sure that he respected Mary Anne, but she didn’t give him time to speak. “Talk to him. Please, if you care at all for the workers and for the success of this business, you’ll do this.”

Bucky sighed. It seemed like he was getting these communist leanings from all sides nowadays. He couldn’t very well tell Steve that he’d had an opportunity to improve things for the workers and had turned it down. “Fine. But I’m going to tell him that you came up with it. I’ll lie and say I helped you if it comes to that, but I might not be here forever.” If they stuck to Steve’s plan, Bucky would be here only until he was accepted to a university. “We can ease him into it, but your father _should_ let you be involved. You’re a better at this stuff than I could ever be and I’m starting to think you’re better at it than your father.”

Mary Anne’s smile returned, tentative this time. “Thanks.”

Bucky wrapped a comforting arm around her. He was beginning to truly understand why Steve had fought so hard against being an omega.

***

Steve was waiting at the apartment when Bucky returned. After the accident Steve had been so protective that Bucky finally decided to dig up enough dirt on Mr. Smith, the building manager, to blackmail him into letting Steve in whenever he wanted. Phyllis had finally succeeded in her wooing of the grocer’s son to the point that he’d sneak down from the loft above the store where his family lived for late night rendezvous in the storeroom. The grocer knew of their assignations, no doubt, but she was not too proud to pretend her son’s virtue was worth much, so long as it was outside of his heat and he avoided being impregnated by an orphan. This meant that Steve had an empty space in Bucky’s bed whenever Phyllis was away. 

Bucky had no idea what Steve told the monks and nuns to avoid being punished for violating his curfew, but he cherished the privilege of curling up under his poorly-sewn quilt with Steve’s bony body draped over him. It was even worth waking up hard and aching and having to follow Steve’s lead to pretend everything was normal and they were just sharing warmth as they had those long winter nights in the sickroom in the days before they differentiated. Bucky always wanted to ask why they couldn’t just do what Phyllis and the grocer’s son did, but he was afraid to know the answer.

“Hey, punk,” Bucky teased.

“Hey yourself, jerk,” Steve replied, giving Bucky a brief hug. “I picked up a block of mozzarella and made us a casserole from what I could scrounge in your cupboard.”

“Mozzarella?”

“That Italian cheese they put on pizzas,” Steve grinned. Steve usually stayed away from the typical ‘omega’ activities, but he enjoyed cooking. The less money and the more mouths to feed, the more Steve seemed to like the challenge. 

“You’re too good to me, sweetheart,” Bucky replied, swooping in to plant a wet, exaggerated smooch on Steve’s cheek.

Steve rubbed the wetness away with a teasing scowl, moving back into the cooking area to check the oven. Bucky couldn’t help but smile at the apparent change in Steve’s mood. Steve had been in a despondent mood since the latest omega social the previous week, but had refused to talk about it when Bucky tried. Admittedly, he hadn’t tried too hard. Steve was much more stubborn than Bucky and if he was being honest with himself, Bucky admitted that he wasn’t exactly keen to talk about the omega socials and the other alphas that Steve might be entertaining.

“So what’s happening at that job of yours,” Steve asked, looking Bucky over critically.

Bucky rolled his eyes, nudging Steve hard enough that he stumbled a little. “I’m _fine_. Machinist is far from the most dangerous job in that place.”

“That’s because that place is a deathtrap.”

This was a familiar argument by now, but Bucky was proud to be able to finally have something to add to the familiar tracks of it. “It may not be so much of a deathtrap anymore. Mary Anne has a brilliant idea to improve conditions for the workers that will also help profits.”

Steve perked up. “Really? That’s wonderful. Though I thought Mary Anne was the secretary.”

Bucky blushed a little. He hadn’t told Steve too much about Mary Anne, other than to mention that she helped him in the office. It was none of Steve’s business, really. And Bucky and Mary Anne were just friends. If Steve could let who knows how many alphas paw him at the omega socials, then Bucky could have another friend who just happened to be an omega. “She’s Bonnie’s sister,” Bucky played it down, refusing to think about why Steve had heard far more about Bonnie, who Bucky actively disliked, than about Mary Anne, who was becoming one of Bucky’s closest friends. “She helps out around the office sometimes.”

“I didn’t know Bonnie had a sister,” Steve remarked absently. “Is she a student a Rockafeller’s also?”

“No. She goes to another school.”

“Oh,” Steve frowned. “It sounds as though she’s a lot smarter than her sister. How come she’s not at Rockafeller’s? Is she at the university?”

Bucky could have lied, but he’d never been dishonest with Steve and he certainly wasn’t going to start over something as insignificant as a friend that he hadn’t told Steve much about.

“Actually she’s at one of those fancy omega charm schools. I forget which.”

Steve’s expression froze momentarily before he gave Bucky a timid smile. “Oh. I guess that makes sense - why her father might have her working as a secretary.”

“Steve, there’s nothing--”

“No, that’s okay. You don’t have to tell me every detail of your life. I just pictured things differently.”

Bucky could tell from the way that Steve was avoiding his eyes that it would only hurt Steve more to call attention to his obvious jealousy, even though Bucky was glad to know that Steve at least cared enough to be jealous. 

“It’s unfair,” Bucky complained, hoping that he could at least get Steve on Mary Anne’s side through sympathy for her plight as an omega. “Mary Anne is so much more intelligent and dedicated than her sister. Her father raised her to take over the business and she would have gladly done it. But after she differentiated as an omega he won’t even listen to her ideas, even if they will save his business. He believes that bullcrap about how differentiation changes the brain development of an omega.”

Instead of rallying behind Mary Anne as Bucky had expected, Steve appeared defiant, with his jaw jutting and a righteous gleam in his eye that he rarely turned on Bucky. “How do you know that’s wrong?”

“Of course I know it’s wrong,” Bucky scoffed. “Mary Anne’s ideas are good. And you, you act more like an alpha than I do half the time. If differentiation really changed the development of the brain, then why would people like you and Mary Anne exist?”

Steve nodded, looking a little relieved at that. “Or maybe I’m an alpha, if I act like one. Maybe Mary Anne is one too.”

“Oh, don’t start this again.” Bucky rolled his eyes. “You’re an omega, Steve. You have heats and you’re fertile. You _smell_ like an omega. That’s not something you can change. Maybe some of you don't have the instinct to be the way that society sees omegas, but you have free will. You don’t have to be the way they want, but you can’t change your body.”

Steve’s expression fell for a moment, but he soon recovered. “So you want your boss to listen to the omega?”

“I wish he’d listen to her,” Bucky grumbled. “But the only way he’ll listen is if I get involved.”

“That’s easy then: get involved.”

“I said I would, but if I am going to go to the university, I won’t be around forever. I need to make Mr. Patterson see that he can rely on Mary Anne.”

Steve smiled a small, anemic grin. “And how do you plan to do that?”

“That’s the problem. Mr. Patterson loves his daughter. He just doesn’t understand that dressing her up like a show pony and finding her a good husband isn’t doing right by her. He won’t accept criticism of his parenting. She’s convinced that if she tells him herself, he won’t do it. But if Mary Anne’s program can make the factory even a little bit safer for the workers, we can’t risk him rejecting it. I have to pretend it’s my idea and if I do that, Mr. Patterson will never see all the reasons why he should start trusting Mary Anne.”

Steve frowned. “I guess the safety of the workers is more important than anything. Maybe after everything is in place you can tell him that you had nothing to do with it.”

“That’s what I was thinking. I’m glad you approve. I mean, half your plans are foolish bordering on absurd, but they seem to always work out for you anyway.”

Steve smiled, relaxing a little for the first time that evening. He opened the oven again before reaching for the towels they used as oven mitts. Bucky stepped around him and grabbed the towels before Steve could, not wanting Steve to struggle lifting the large skillet out of the oven. 

“Hey!” Steve protested. “I can handle it.”

“I thought you were all for alphas acting like omegas. This is me helping cook.” In reality, Bucky was a much better cook than Steve (probably due to all the punishments he spent in the kitchen), but Bucky taking care of Steve had been a sticking point ever since they differentiated. Bucky had always felt protective towards Steve, due to his size and health. Steve had mostly allowed it before they differentiated, but now he saw it as misplaced chivalry rather than compassionate friendship.

Steve eventually relented, but as Bucky was wrestling with him for the towels, he noticed a yellowing bruise ringing Steve’s wrist. He immediately snatched Steve’s arm and pulled his too-long shirtsleeve up. “What’s this?”

The bruise looked old, maybe as much as a week, which was a long time for Steve to hide something like that, unless he was hiding it deliberately. Bucky’s eyes narrowed. “Were you brawling with the local bullies again? Just because most people with any sense wouldn’t hit an omega doesn’t mean you can just step in to protect any poor little kid who they set their sights on, especially the alpha ones. You aren’t doing them any favors. I can’t imagine anything more humiliating than being a young alpha needing to be defended by a pint-sized omega.”

Steve looked ready to argue, as he usually did when Bucky called him out on his inappropriate protector instincts, but then he seemed to shrink in on himself, staring down at his bruised wrist. “It’s nothing, Bucky. Just forget it.”

Bucky sighed. “I know you hate it when I get alpha protective, so let me tell you that this has nothing to do with being an alpha. You’re my friend first and I don’t want to see you get hurt. I know I won’t stop that loud mouth of yours, but promise me that you’ll at least try to stay away from physical violence.”

“I still think you should leave your alpha instincts out of if,” Steve complained, but his tentative smile at least showed that he would try to indulge Bucky’s protective instincts on this one.

“I’m taking that as a promise,” Bucky warned. 

Steve shrugged, his strange subdued mood of the past week seeming to creep back for a moment. Bucky couldn’t have that, so he changed the subject. “This smells delicious,” Bucky enthused, punctuating his statement with a loud growl from his stomach. “Bobby and Pablo will be sad they missed it.”

“They’ll be happy to eat our leftovers when they get back in the morning. It’s Phyllis who might not get a bite.”

“So she’s getting serious with Stewart from the grocery?”

“Unfortunately.” Bucky made a face. There was nothing wrong with Stewart, but there was nothing special about him either. He wondered if Phyllis was rushing into things just because she didn’t think she could do better. “You know, if she moves out, you could always move in here.”

“Mother Maria would crucify you, Bucky. Sister Madeline lets me sneak out every once and awhile to see you and you can bribe the apartment manager, but if I move out, the first place Mother Maria will look for me is here. We’d all get kicked out of church housing.”

Bucky hated to admit it, but Steve was right. They really would have to wait. Of course, there were still things that they _could_ do. “You know, my classmates are starting to think that I’m making you up.”

Steve blushed a little. “You talk to them about me?”

Bucky shrugged. “I don’t talk to them much, but what else would I talk about?” Truthfully, he was disturbed by his classmates’ carnal focus on omegas and especially on the kind of omega they thought someone with Bucky’s “freedom” would be able to scrounge up - ignoring the fact that working the number of hours he did barely allowed for any freedom at all. 

Steve fidgeted a little in his seat, dropping his fork with a clatter. “I don’t know. Maybe you could tell them about this Mary Anne girl and her revolutionary ideas.”

“Yeah, that would go over well in a rich alpha school: concern for the workers and the sister of one of the biggest alphas in my grade.”

“So it’s safer to talk about your best friend, the orphaned omega with asthma?”

It was Bucky’s turn to blush. With all the cuddling and the few small kisses that they’d exchanged, Bucky was feeling more confident about his future with Steve, but the fact that they hadn’t tried for more, despite the opportunity worried him. From the way his classmates cheered him on when he mentioned that Steve had stayed the night (even in the context of needing someone to take care of him the first few days after he’d injured his arm) they seemed to think that sharing a bed was synonymous with something that Bucky definitely wasn’t getting from Steve. “Don’t be mad, but I may have told them that you were my omega.”

The silence hung like storm clouds for a long moment before Steve replied, “I guess it doesn’t matter what you tell them about me. I’ll never meet them.”

“Actually, that’s what I wanted to ask you. We have a cotillion coming up soon and some of the kids were teasing me about not wanting to go, because I’m too poor to be able to dress up. I don’t really mind that, because it’s true, but then they started to say that I was probably too poor and too uncultured to have any omega at all, even an orphan, so one of the boys said he’d let me borrow his extra tuxedo suit and another offered her omega brother’s clothes for you. I know they just want to gawk at us, but Mr. Patterson already gave me the night off and the will be music and steak and I think we’d have fun just daring them to laugh at us.”

Steve was one of the bravest people that Bucky knew, but he couldn’t seem to face the idea of coming to a dance in front of a bunch of dumb alphas that he didn’t even know, not even if Bucky really wanted it. “I’m sorry, Bucky,” he stammered, fingering his bruised wrist. “I don’t think I can do that.”

***

Mary Anne was waiting anxiously, standing in the mud outside the factory entrance and ignoring the catcalls from alpha workers coming and going from the nearby factories. She tugged on several of her blonde curls nervously, only to have them spring back into place as though nothing had happened. 

“Oh, Bucky, thank goodness you’re here,” she exclaimed, rushing up to Bucky and flinging her arms around him like an omega from a romance film.

Bucky’s arms came up around her automatically, though he was already trying to peer into the warehouse for whatever threat had her practically trembling. His alpha instincts were already in full protector-mode. “What happened?”

“I couldn’t help it,” Mary Anne moaned. Bucky gripped her tighter, but was happy to note that he felt no tears pressed against his less-than-spotless boilersuit. “There was an accident last night after your shift. One of the omegas in A block got his hand caught in the spooler.”

Bucky nodded. He didn’t want to bring up that this was actually a fairly common accident. But if Marry Anne was doing an experiment about reducing accidents she’d already know that. 

“His hand was mangled and there was so much blood.”

“Were you here?” Mary Anne had left by the time Bucky did.

She nodded. “My father got called in after dinner and I thought I would go with him to learn more about the night shift, because I’ve never seen it. They moved the man onto the cot in the machinist shop and they called the doctor. His hand was so far gone that they had to cut it off!”

“I can’t believe your father let you see all that.” It sounded worse than most such events Bucky had witnessed, but any accident was a gruesome sight that Bucky didn’t wish on anybody.

“He told me to wait in the office, but I wanted to see. I snuck in. Bucky, it was horrible. And the worst part was that I knew the worker. He came into the office before his shift. He asked my father to be transferred to block C because he was pregnant and having trouble staying sharp throughout his shift. He’s alive, but they cut off his hand and the doctor told me it would be a miracle if he didn’t lose his baby and it all could have been prevented if my father would have just let him switch shifts. I didn’t say anything last night, but today when my father was complaining about the shutdown, I got angry. I was disrespectful and now he hates me. He won’t use my idea out of spite. I can’t believe that horrible, hateful man is my own father. A man lost almost everything and he’s worried about his bottom line!”

She had finally started crying, big fat tears starting to overflow out of her clear blue eyes.

Bucky wasn’t accustomed to comfort. In the orphanage, kids grew up tough. Even Steve, for all his frailty, shed tears only from overwhelming physical pain. “Uh,” he stammered, patting her on the back awkwardly. “He doesn’t hate you, Mary Anne. You’re his daughter.” Not that Bucky knew anything about parents and children. “Whatever his other faults, he would never hate you. He just doesn’t see, that’s all. He doesn’t see.”

Mary Anne nodded, once again sobbing into Bucky’s chest. “He’s going to call you into his office,” she whispered. “He wouldn’t believe that you would ever support my stupid plan.”

“Well, I’ll _make_ him believe.”

“And if he fires you?”

Bucky’s entire plan for his life would be ruined. There was no way he would get a job with as much pay and relatively good treatment and he wouldn’t be able to afford the university and he probably couldn’t even support Steve and his dreams would turn to ash. But, Steve would never forgive him if he didn’t fight for the right thing and Bucky wasn’t entirely sure he would be able to forgive himself. 

“Then he’ll fire me.”

He pushed back from his friend, noticing for the first time the fine red fabric of Mary Anne’s dress and the detail of the makeup that now ran smudged down her cheeks. Red was a courting color, symbolizing that an omega was looking for a partner to share the next heat.

“Mary Anne--” Bucky began, concerned. Mary Anne had told him her plans to delay marriage in order to accompany Bonnie to University, officially to be a kind of house helper for her and unofficially in order to use Bonnie’s classes and books to learn for herself. He hated to think that she had abandoned her goals of furthering her education, however indirectly, just because her father wanted her married.

“Father needs to see you, and you know how he hates to wait.” Mary Anne deflected. “I’m surprised Mr. O'Flaherty isn’t already out here to usher you inside.”

Sure enough, as soon as Bucky opened the door, the steely-eye foreman of block B was headed towards him, angrily puffing on his cigarette. “Get yourself up there, boy. The boss needs ya, and that’s a man who hates to wait.”

Bucky nodded, hurring two steps at a time up the rickety iron stairs. Only when he stood on the landing facing the door did he look back down to see Mr. O’Flarity and Mary Anne talking quietly. Mr. O'Flaherty had made no secret of his dislike of Mr. Patterson’s favoritism towards Bucky or the responsibilities that he was given at such a young age, but unlike some of the other foremen, he was never unnecessarily cruel to his workers and helpfully allowed them to swap or split shifts without reporting it to Mr. Patterson. 

Mr. O'Flaherty never looked at Bucky with anything other than anger or vague, prickly resentment, but his features were subdued and compassionate as he whispered to Mary Anne. Bucky didn’t need to hear their conversation to know that some of the other workers had brought O'Flaherty news: the injured worker had probably lost his baby.

“What’re you waiting on?” O'Flaherty yelled. “Jesus’ll no more save you from this than he saved us all from this ugly life.”

Bucky took solace in Mary Anne’s tremulous, but encouraging, smile and O'Flaherty’s lack of a red-faced grimace and walked through the main office to Mr. Patterson’s door at the very back.

Mr. Patterson’s office was in the boxcar-looking set of office rooms made out of cheap metal girders and scrap wood and suspended from the factory’s ceiling. Steve could have painted the generic picture of the sailboat suspended on a crooked nail from the back wall while blindfolded and the scuffed mahogany desk appeared to be testing the strength of the ill-hewn floorboards. It was a parody of even the parroted wealth of the Patterson home, but the imposing desk and the flickering green banker’s lamp and Patterson’s high-backed chair did the job of making him seem distant and imposing, so much more formal than the man who showed up at Rockafeller’s in his impractical Cadillac.

Bucky’s spine straightened involuntarily as he stood at near-military attention in front of Patterson’s desk.

“James, m’boy,” he said, with a smile that only made Bucky more nervous. “You look like you’ve been called to a hanging.” He chuckled at his own joke. “I know I don’t often call you up here, but that’s only because I can’t have you here a full shift, what with that damn school I pay through roof for my witless daughter to attend. But this conversation demands privacy.”

Bucky nodded solemnly. A firing should have privacy, after all.

Patterson snorted, giving Bucky a hard pat on the back that almost made him stumble. He was a big, broad-shouldered man with hands like paws and a crooked smile. The hats and suits he wore looked like they could barely contain his bulk and his dark, darting eyes and wispy blond hair did nothing to conceal the ineloquent, almost simian slope of his forehead. Patterson had the build of a dock-worker or an old-time sailor and looked as out of place in an office as Bucky felt in the world of Rockafeller’s.

He walked over to the small wooden cabinet in the corner that contained a single crystal decanter of deep amber-colored liquor, pulling out too tumblers and pouring a more-than-healthy portion in each. “Have a drink with me.” He motioned Bucky forward.

“Are you sure, sir? I mean, I don’t know if I should be drunk down on the floor.”

Patterson laughed. “Drunk from a few fingers of whiskey? You don’t get out enough, kid.” Bucky didn’t know how he was supposed to build up an ability to drink if he spent all his time at school or working. He would go drinking with Bobby, Pablo, and Phyllis sometimes, but he tried to moderate himself whenever Steve was around, just so Steve (with his health problems and omega constitution) wouldn’t have to keep up.

“How I wish I could put the fear of god into my daughters the way I seem to have put it into you, Barnes. Go ahead, you don’t have to be out on the floor today.”

“Yes, sir,” Bucky attempted when it looked as though Patterson wanted a reply. He really hoped that he’d still get paid for this shift. Rent was due this week and he was determined not to dip into his savings even though his injury had produced extra costs. Still, he’d rather dip into the savings than beg Patterson to let him out of whatever chat the man seemed determined to have just so that he didn’t miss a day’s wage.

“By ‘yes,’ you mean that you’ll take that drink,” he waved it at Bucky for emphasis. “Or you’d like me to have control of my daughters?” 

Bucky took the drink, gulping it down while he worried about how he’d respond.

Patterson once again laughed at his own joke. “I think that you wish the opposite.”

“Trust me, all of Rockafeller’s wouldn’t mind if you kept better control.”

“Of Bonnie, yes. But I think you wish that I have no control over Mary Anne.”

Bucky was dying to tell Mr. Patterson exactly what he thought about his treatment of Mary Anne, but getting fired wasn’t actually his goal today. 

“I can see that you do,” Patterson cackled as though celebrating a great triumph. “If you want to succeed in business, you need to become a better liar, boy.” Bucky didn’t have his eye on business, but then again, Mr. Patterson had no way to know that. “You think I haven’t put two and two together? I run an entire factory and you think I wouldn’t notice that my sweet, obedient little girl started to change right after she met you?”

Bucky clenched his fist so tight that he feared he might break his glass. He couldn’t say anything. He’d just get both himself and Mary Anne into trouble and then where would the workers be?

“You know about this crazy plan she has? She wants to reduce the hours in a shift and increase wages in order to do it. She’s visiting that falling-down dump of a building that we stuff the Polacks and the Wops into and _organizing_ those cretins. Don’t bother telling me that it was your idea. We both know that’s a lie.”

Bucky nodded. There was no use maintaining the charade.

“I did the best I could with her. Maybe I shouldn’t have introduced her to business so young. Maybe if she’d never gotten the taste for it. But I was so sure she’d turn out an alpha. She had all the signs of behaving like one. I messed up, but once she differentiated, I tried my hardest to make her a proper lady - the schooling and the tutors and more money on dresses than you make in a year. I did my best to fix the damage I had done.”

“Maybe that’s not what she wants.” Bucky clamped his mouth shut, but the words had already escaped. He couldn’t believe his own daring.

“What my daughter wants hardly concerns me. She is an omega and her best hope for happiness is a husband that will be good to her. I would give my soul for Mary Anne to be the alpha and her sister the omega, but fate conspires. She has been cursed by a bad lot in life and for her own sake, I must help her learn to live with it.”

“But her ideas are good!” Bucky protested. “You’ve seen the results. It will help the factory and it will help the workers. Even if you don’t care about them more than a cracked bearing or a bent spindle, you should care about your profits. Are you really so stupid with hate that you’d throw that away just because the idea came from an omega?”

Instead of the rage Bucky expected for his insubordination, he received a raised glass and a deep belly laugh. “Here’s to the young and the brash, my daughter included. The two of you deserve each other,” he smirked. “It’s not what I planned, but I’m a capitalist: I do my best not to frown on opportunity.”

“What do you mean?”

“I went about things the wrong way. I thought that Mary Anne’s thirst for business could be tamed, but I forgot how bloodthirsty I had been when I got into this work and she is my daughter. I wouldn’t quit; why should I expect she would? So instead of reforming that girl, I’ll give her the tools to succeed. And that tool is you, my boy. I already thought of you as a future manager, but maybe I didn’t dream big enough. With your skills and my daughter’s ambition, we could make this company truly great. Make a new dynasty.”

Maybe the drink was going to Bucky’s head, because he still couldn’t figure out what Patterson meant by all this. He sounded almost hopeful about Mary Anne’s future in business even though Mary Anne swore up and down that her father wouldn’t listen to her. “I don’t know, Mr. Patterson. I’m grateful for all you’ve done for me, but I planned to go to university. I’ll do any job you give me now, but you shouldn’t count on me to be your manager.”

Patterson shook his head, a large hand landing on Bucky’s back with a loud, meaty thump. “You were raised an orphan, so of course you lack the vision to imagine that this company could be yours one day. But you’re scrappy, like I was when I started hauling bales of cotton for a mill like this one. I went from being a stonemason’s son to a factory owner, but you’re smarter than I am. You can make it from nothing with the right connections. Hell, I can even spare you a few years for the university. The tuition would be wasted on Bonnie anyway.”

It sounded too good to be true. Sure, Bucky hadn’t planned to keep working in the factory, but if they followed Mary Anne’s plans it wouldn’t just be a job of keeping the workers in check, but work that required ingenuity and skill. Bucky could still go to university and even though he would never have the same strange delusions of society life as the Pattersons, he would be more than able to provide for Steve and maybe even any children they might want to conceive. But then he remembered Mary Anne. She was supposed to follow Bonnie to university, but now she was wearing red so that he father could still marry her off like chattel. “What about Mary Anne? If she’s supposed to be the brains behind all this, you can’t just force her to be someone’s house omega.”

“Whether Mary Anne is a house omega depends on you, and based on what I’ve seen of you, I doubt you would do that to her. We both know that her passion shouldn’t go to waste. You’ll be tempted to breed her, of course, but if you can contain yourselves the first few years during your university stay, I’m sure she could learn as much from your studies as you do.”

Bucky was so shocked that he nearly dropped his glass. Mr. Patterson was offering that he marry Mary Anne and that they run the business together? “But I’m an orphan. I don’t have the money to support your daughter.”

Patterson waved Bucky’s concerns aside. “I’ll make you vice president or give Mary Anne a dowry. Is that still done? It doesn’t matter. The price of inviting you into the family is far less of a risky investment than rolling the dice on whatever mess Bonnie will make of it. We are capitalists, m’boy, and we won’t let whatever minor social grumblings marrying an orphan into the family will cause stand in the way of a perfect plan. Whether she likes it or not, my daughter needs a husband and it’s better for business if her husband lets her have a say in that business. I can trust that you’ll give her that leeway, because I’ve seen you. You already care for her and you don’t care that she’s an omega if her ideas are good. I wouldn’t trust any of the society types that I was trying to pair her with to do that. For all I know, they’ll be worse for business than Bonnie.”

Bucky stared at Mr. Patterson, dumbfounded. He was supposed to marry Mary Anne? She was his friend and he did care about her. He cared enough to not want whatever other fate that Patterson might come up with for her and he wasn’t blind to her beauty, but she wasn’t his omega. Bucky already had an omega who he loved. Of course, he had an omega who refused to even attend an evening’s dance with him, who slept beside him in bed without so much as a caress, and who had only finally admitted that he wasn’t also an alpha.

“Here,” Patterson said, tossing something which Bucky barely registered before catching it. “She’s waiting down on the floor with George. Take her to a nice dinner downtown or shopping or to the talkies. The two of you can start with those shift changes tomorrow.”

Bucky looked down at the object in his hand. It was a leather wallet with his own initials monogrammed onto it. If he was meant to keep it, it would easily be the most expensive item he owned. Inside he found forty dollars, which was more than three times their monthly rent.

Patterson winked at him. “Take the Cadillac and show her a good time, son. Her mother tells me that she’s just had her heat and that her cycle is a little long, so that gives you a good two and a half months for wooing.”

Bucky walked out of the office in a daze, almost scratching himself on a sharp, rusted section of the stairway railing. Mary Anne rushed up to him as soon as she saw him, practically bouncing on her toes. When Bucky didn’t speak, she looked disappointed, but gave a brave smile. “Well, don’t keep me waiting. Even if it’s bad news, don’t keep me waiting.”

Bucky honestly didn’t know if it was bad news or not when it came to the general proposition, but Mary Anne didn’t need to know about that just yet. He smiled at her. “We can start working out the shift changes tomorrow.”

Mary Anne threw herself into his arms with a very unladylike shriek. Her sweet, lightly perfumed smell enveloped him and her body felt soft and comfortable pressed up against his. “Why don’t we get started now? We need to set up a worker availability logbook and tell the foremen to get people in before shift so we can fill them out. And we’ll need for find more space in housing for the omega cooperative and we’ll need to make a few new hires. Maybe we should ask the workers if they would be willing to take a small decrease in pay to support the cooperative - maybe hire a permanent organizer for it. There’s so much to do!”

Bucky couldn’t help but smile at her enthusiasm. It reminded him of Steve once an idea grabbed ahold of him. “Not so fast. Your father gave me permission to use his car and the money to take you out on the town in celebration. I don’t think he’d like us tossing back his generosity.”

“Fine,” Mary Anne huffed. Bucky couldn’t help but find it cute how much the idea of a night on the town seemed to disappoint her. 

He put an arm around her waist and guided her out towards the garage where the Cadillac was kept. In reality, Bucky was nervous. He’d never driven a car before and he certainly wasn’t a licensed driver. He was surprised when Mary Anne pulled open the glove box and pulled on a pair of driving gloves, winking at him as she made her way around to the driver’s seat. 

“Where to, Mr. Barnes?” she asked, coquettishly. 

Bucky stifled the embarrassment of being driven around by an omega, particularly one wearing red. 

“Oh, Bucky. I’ll teach you how to drive. Don’t worry,” she reached over and squeezed his thigh. “This is just for today.”

Bucky shrugged, trying to pretend that it didn’t matter. He didn’t much care what people thought of him - not the way Phyllis or even Steve did. But Mary Anne went to a fancy charm school and had a society reputation to maintain. He didn’t want his lack of skills to make her look like a desperate omega lowering herself to consort with some poor, underdressed orphan. He supposed that maybe that was what part of the forty dollars was for, considering they had plenty of time before dinner.

“Your father gave me forty dollars,” Bucky admitted. “I don’t even know what to do with that kind of money. I heard that omegas like the latest fashions. Maybe we could head downtown and you could buy something nice for yourself and help me be, um, stylish?”

Mary Anne laughed. “It’ll take a lot more than forty dollars to make you stylish, Bucky. I’m happy to help you attempt looking presentable, but my mother so enjoys spending my father’s money on my clothes, we shan’t spoil her fun.” Mary Anne bit her lower lip, looking suddenly nervous. “Do you know what I’d truly enjoy?”

“What?”

“I’d like to see Brooklyn. Not just across the river where Bonnie goes to school, but the real Brooklyn. All the places you told me about - the empty lot you and Steve used to play in, prospect park, the orphanage, that funny butcher who lost the tip of his thumb in a mysterious accident and that pizza place that you swear makes better pizza than you could get even in Italy. Get me a slice of that pizza and save the rest of that money for a rainy day.”

Bucky didn’t know how he felt about Mary Anne coming to Brooklyn. On one hand, it was unfair of him to want to share all of these stories of his childhood with her and not expect her to want to see it for herself and if he only treated her to pizza, he could add nearly forty dollars to his savings. On the other hand, he wasn’t sure he wanted to mix his work in the factory with his life in Brooklyn. Bucky sure as hell hadn’t _enjoyed_ growing up in poverty, but there was something precious about those places - he felt _entitled_ to every single one of those hard knocks in his hard knock life and he wasn’t sure he could stand Mary Anne trying to “understand” them as a rich girl on holiday in the slums. Bucky was proud of his neighborhood and its diversity and the small kindnesses that people managed to find for each other even when they had so little, but he didn’t know if Mary Anne had earned the right to it, no matter how much she cared about the workers. She certainly didn’t have to right to take part in all the little miracles Bucky and Steve had cherished and shared. She had so much, she probably wouldn’t appreciate them for more than a quaint curiosity.

“Are you sure?” Bucky asked. “I _was_ offering an extravagant night out on the town.”

Mary Anne looked down at her gloved hands. Her cheeks were already flushed from cold, but the red appeared to deepen. Bucky couldn’t pretend that she wasn’t beautiful. “I’ve had a lot of suitors take me shopping or to fancy restaurants. Is it so hard to believe that’d I’d be happier to just spend time getting to know you?”

Inwardly, Bucky cringed. He knew that the whole reason behind the wallet and the car and the money was for him to be able to woo Mary Anne and eventually breed her and marry her, but even her shiny blonde hair and plump red lips weren’t enough to make him forget about Steve and all the plans they’d made. He gave her a nervous smile. “Brooklyn it is, then. You know the route to Rockafeller’s?”

Mary Anne nodded and returned the smile with twice the intensity. 

“Alright. Once you get us there, I’ll guide you.”

The car’s engine was loud as it jostled over the pavement. Bucky was thankful that it prevented conversation. He knew that he absolutely could not abandon Steve, no matter what happened. He loved Steve with all his heart, more than he could ever love Mary Anne. But even though he knew Steve loved him back, Bucky still hadn’t received any concrete evidence that Steve was even remotely interested in being mated to Bucky. Bucky was beginning to suspect that Steve’s reluctance stemmed from a physical inability to handle sex, especially during heat. Bucky loved Steve, but he wasn’t a saint. He did have needs and it was unjust for Steve to keep him stuck like a fish on a hook if he had no intentions of ever fulfilling those needs. It was unfair for him to expect Bucky to scrimp and save to support him and then refuse to even attend a simple dance.

They spoke of a shared future, but there was no reason that they couldn’t still share a future with Bucky married to Mary Anne. Mary Anne was an agreeable girl and not a jealous omega. She would let Steve stay with them once he left Our Lady of Mercy and with what he saved on room and board and a scholarship, Steve might even be able to go to art school. He could help sketching designs and patterns if they did start going into the garment business and maybe they could even start publishing the tales of Bullseye and the Defender once they had some initial capital in their pockets. 

Mary Anne drove slowly over the bridge, sighing with the wind gently tossing her blonde curls. Most girls wore headscarves while driving with the windows down in order to protect their hair, something Mary Anne was no doubt aware of. But something had been loosening in her ever since she and Bucky met and Bucky had never seen her more relaxed that she appeared today. It was more than just letting her hair fly free. 

Once they reached the end of the bridge, they were ambushed by a line of boys and girls selling candies and trinkets like Steve and Bucky once had. Bucky was surprised when Mary Anne stopped, laughing at the adoring stare one of the scruffy young girls was giving her. She pulled out her change purse and slipped a quarter into the girl’s hand, selecting two large lollipops that were no doubt worth mere pennies. 

“Father never lets me stop for sweets,” she complained.

“You’re very pretty, Miss,” one of the precocious young boys declared. He was wearing a pair of ratty old dungarees and had soot in his messy blond hair. He reminded Bucky of Steve, even though it was clear that he’d just differentiated as an alpha. “Maybe I can interest yer alpha inna flower to complement yer beauty. I’m justa eleven-year-old orphan, miss, but I’d buy you a flower if I could.” It was clearly a rehearsed speech. If this kid was a Mercy boy, Bucky wouldn’t put it past Steve to have helped him with his little speech. 

Mary Anne looked charmed by the act, so Bucky handed over a quarter of his own and picked out the reddest rose he could find in the boy’s wilting collection. “I was an orphaned alpha too,” Bucky said with a wink. The little boy’s eyes widened and even though Bucky felt foolish, sitting next to a beautiful omega dressed to the nines when he himself was wearing his frayed and dirty work clothes, he felt a bit heroic in that moment.

Mary Anne giggled at the boy’s expression, waving to the children as she drove them onwards towards the park.

“That used to be me and Steve,” Bucky remarked as they drove away. “Though I think we relied on pity more than charm.”

“I don’t know, you seem pretty charming to me.” Mary Anne grinned, looking pointedly at the rose that Bucky had tucked up against the windshield. 

The park was beautiful at dusk and after Bucky found one of the street dwellers that he recognized to watch the Cadillac, they stepped out onto the path. Mary Anne had pulled on a short fur coat that still showed off her long stockinged legs and the bottom of her bright red dress. She pulled a coat that no doubt belonged to her father out of the back seat for Bucky. It was several sizes too big, but at least made him look less out of place than his work clothes.

The view of music island from the lakeshore had always been beautiful, but something about having Mary Anne pressed up against his side made it even better. Bucky wished that just once Steve would sit on a park bench with his arm enlaced with Bucky’s, easily sharing his affection the way Mary Anne did. 

“I’m so happy, Bucky,” she whispered, tucking herself closer until her hair tickled Bucky’s cheek. “After I differentiated I felt like the most unlucky person in the world, but now I feel like one of the luckiest.” She turned her head to press a lipstick-stained kiss on his cheek.

“You know that this is all your father’s idea, right?” Bucky didn’t mean to make it sound like a rejection, but he winced when it came out that way all the same.

“I know it is,” Mary Anne agreed. “And I know that your heart belongs to another.” Sometimes Bucky hated the way Mary Anne spoke, like she’d stepped right out of the pages of one of those boring English romances they were made to read in school. “But we work well together, you and I. We’ll grow to love each other, quickly, I’m sure. I could never have hoped to like my husband or wife half as much as I like you and I would be proud to bear your children.”

Children? She was already thinking about children? Bucky stiffened.

Mary Anne pinched him. “Not right away, silly. I would if I had to marry someone else, but you and I don’t need to rush. After the first heat, Bonnie can help us get some prophylactics, and you know that the chances of conception during the first heat are slim. We’ll go to university, a good one. I think you might be able to be admitted to Harvard, as a kind of orphaned novelty, and maybe my father would even let me attend Radcliff if we were already living in Boston. Father doesn’t have personal connections, but he knows how to leverage the people who do.”

Bucky had never dreamed of attending Harvard. At most he hoped that one of the smaller colleges in the city would take him. But the look in Mary Anne’s eyes said that she believed it was possible and he trusted her judgement enough to let himself hope. Hope, he found, was a dangerous tingling sensation that he was not entirely prepared to cope with. 

“You really think so?” he asked.

“You’re smart and driven, Bucky. With a factory and some capital to draw on and a Harvard education, that’s how business empires are founded. I want to see you succeed and I want to be by your side when you do.”

Nevermind that Bucky had never had empire on his mind, he was swept up in images of Harvard’s hallowed halls, business deals and fine suits and the power to finally have some say in the plight of the factory workers or the dirty streets of Brooklyn. He could donate enough to Our Lady of Mercy so that they wouldn’t have to send alphas away and consign omegas to be the spouses of men and women who would treat them like objects, even moreso for their orphan heritage. Bucky had always dreamed of having just enough to get by with a safe, quiet life, but perhaps Mr. Patterson was right - his upbringing had hobbled him with a criminal lack of vision. A vision that Mary Anne had in spades.

He looked into her bright blue eyes, searching for any shred of delusion there, but Mary Anne knew the score. It would be partnership as much as marriage, but what great partners they would make.

It was Mary Anne who pressed her lips briefly to Bucky’s before pulling him off the bench and back towards the car.

***

Bucky felt like a thief, stealing quickly down the side of his building to the main entrance. Bucky knew that he wouldn’t make any decision about the deal with Mary Anne before he talked to Steve about it first, but they _had_ shared a kiss, albeit a small, chaste one. Bucky felt guilty, even though he hadn’t initiated it. Not to mention the fact that Bucky had asked Mary Anne to attend the cotillion with him on the walk back to the car. He did need to go with someone and Mr. Patterson would be upset if that person wasn’t Mary Anne. Besides, he’d already offered to go with Steve and Steve had rejected him. Even though he’d done nothing wrong, Bucky still felt guilty.

He felt even more guilty that he might soon be engaged to a woman who Steve had only found out was more than just a secretary yesterday. He had already resolved not to push his relationship with Mary Anne any farther until he could talk to Steve and find out once and for all whether or not Steve really did want him, but that didn’t mean he wanted to have the conversation this very instant with Mary Anne waiting down in the car while he grabbed a change of clothes. 

Luckily, when Bucky poked his head inside to find nosey omega building manager waiting for him with the sign in sheet, Steve’s name wasn’t on it.

“I don’t care what dirt you’ve got on me, you fast-talking brat,” Mr. Smith said, rubbing his huge pot-belly in a bored way and belching for emphasis, neatly demonstrating a few of the many reasons why he would never find an alpha. “If Mother Maria finds out that I let you free reign to deflower an omega like _that_ one, I’ll be out of here faster than you can spot a rat in that outside dumpster.” The dumpster was swarming with rats, so that would be fast.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Smith, I’m just grabbing a change of clothes. You can go sit out there and watch her if you’re really that determined to guard her virtue.”

Mr. Smith snorted, seeming torn. It wasn’t everyday that he had a chance to see a Cadillac and a classy omega like Mary Anne, but he was also a lazy slob who Bucky rarely saw outside of his robe and ugly orange knit hat, hardly prepared to go outside. But to Bucky’s surprise, he pulled on a large, but hideous old green coat and a pair of galoshes. “Maybe she’s got a smoke.”

Bucky took the rickety old stairs two at a time, hoping beyond hope that Phyllis hadn’t come home and woken Pablo and Bobby up. Of course, he had no such luck: Phyllis, Bobby and Pablo were all gathered around the window when he burst in.

“I would literally give my last penny to be able to mount that,” Phyllis sighed dreamily as she jostled with Pablo for a spot in front of their small window.

“You’re already on your last penny,” Bobby pointed out.

“Muñequita, te quiero,” Pablo breathed, petting the glass as though he could touch Mary Anne through it.

“On what planet do _you_ get to ride around with a dame like that?” Bobby complained to Bucky. 

“What do you mean? I’m handsome enough.”

Phyllis laughed. “Pretty, more like. Hell, you could almost pass for an omega after a good bath to wash away your scent. You don’t even _act_ like an alpha half the time.” 

Bucky frowned. He thought he was alpha enough. Sure, he didn’t get into bar fights like Phyllis or go tomcatting around like Pablo, but he had a good job and he certainly wasn’t a pushover. Bucky punched Phyllis on the arm, distracting her from where she was gaping at Mary Anne. “It’s _called_ being a gentleman.”

“Or being a wet slot,” Phyllis mutter under her breath, rubbing at her arm uncomfortably. 

Bucky punched her again for that kind of awful language. He didn’t mind it that much, but she couldn’t seem to contain it when Steve was around and Bucky was trying to train her out of it.

“Besides,” Bobby interrupted before Phyllis could retaliate, “you’re the only one of us who already has an omega and,” he looked at Phyllis pointedly, “is loyal enough to that omega to stay faithful. It’s not fair that you get _that_ to tempt you when the rest of us can’t even dream of talking to an omega like that.”

“Yes, poor Bucky has to suffer the temptation. But, oh, the temptation! Look at those hips. Those lips. That hair.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “That’s enough. Mary Anne is my boss’s daughter and my friend. We’re working on a new shift schedule to improve conditions for the workers.” It wasn’t exactly a lie.

“Please, Bucky. We weren’t born yesterday.” Phyllis put her hands on her hips. “That cute little omega wants you. I may not be a society alpha, but I know what wearing red out alone with an alpha means, even if you say it’s to talk about business. You know she has to be looking for more.”

“So what if she _is_ looking for more?” Bucky asked. He was tired of Bobby and Phyllis thinking that Bucky was some kind of saint, an example of a love-match when the man who supposedly loved him could barely stomach a french kiss. And he was tired of being teased for not being a very good alpha when he’d done far better than either of them and had actually gotten a charm-school omega interested in him.

“Well you have to let her down gently,” Phyllis said. “And if she is determined to marry an orphan, you could always suggest one of us.”

Phyllis’s leer made Bucky clench his fists. Maybe he was a better alpha than he thought because the idea of Bobby or Phyllis with their crude jokes and their absolute lack of prospects getting their lecherous hands on Mary Anne made Bucky want to punch someone. Mary Anne might eventually be Bucky’s wife and if she wasn’t, then she deserved far better than the likes of Bobby and Phyllis. Bucky didn’t realize he was snarling until he saw the shocked look on their faces.

“I think we’ve found our proof that it’s not just a business relationship,” Bobby smirked. “Maybe you’re not as above temptation as we thought.”

Bucky felt himself flush with embarrassment. He felt exposed. His friends all thought that he and Steve were doing a lot more than sleeping next to each other, so they couldn’t understand why Bucky was genuinely considering marrying someone else. They didn’t have a right to Bucky’s failure in that regard or to his misery. But they also didn’t have a right to judge him when they all looked at Mary Anne and felt the same stirrings that Bucky had been so good at repressing around her (at least until now). They certainly didn’t have the right to make Bucky feel guiltier than he already did. They just didn't understand that if any distance had grown between Steve an Bucky after their days fighting for each other at the orphanage, it was Steve's fault as much as Bucky's, because it was Steve who couldn't seem to commit to the future they both wanted. Bucky really had nothing to feel guilty about so they had no right to make assumptions and to force that guilt on him.

“Y el pequeñito?” Pablo asked, shaking Bobby’s arm to get him to translate. Of course Bucky already knew Pablo’s nickname for Steve. 

“El pequeñito doesn’t need to know about this,” Bucky snapped, feeling like the biggest jerk on the planet when he grabbed his clothes and slammed the door on his way out. He was so angry that he didn’t even care that he’d have to change in the car.


	6. Options

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Steve finally talk about things, but Bucky is short on options.

Bucky was glad that Steve hadn’t been waiting for him after work on Tuesday, the day after his date with Mary Anne. 

Bucky was still coming to terms with the fact that he had _enjoyed_ himself, introducing Mary Anne to the characters who hung around in Joey’s Pizzeria in Bensonhurst. There was little Adrian, who was probably a couple thousand slices of pizza short of being little, Nonna and her crew of petty thieves, who no doubt worked for the mafia, and Bianca and her scandal-worthy and improbably attractive omega husband, Kamil, a polack who Bianca had probably saved from one of the mafia’s loan sharks, though nobody really knew.

Mary Anne had been stiff and wary at first, but once Papa Joey came out of the back in response to the gossip about Bucky’s new dame, all it took was one hearty pat on the back and Mary Anne was smiling and chatting, paying just as much attention to the other patrons as she did to Bucky. She had even managed to get the true story behind little Adrian’s nickname out of him on the first try, when he usually used it as another excuse to spin wild tales. Afterwards, they drove by the orphanage building so Mary Anne could see it and then she dropped Bucky at his apartment, leaving him with only a soft kiss on the cheek and the whisper that she had really enjoyed herself.

That only served to make Bucky more guilty and confused, especially when Steve didn’t show up on Tuesday or on Wednesday. Bucky had rearranged his schedule so that he had Wednesday off. Therefore, the only times that they missed a Wednesday dinner together was when Steve was on his heat or too sick to come over. Phyllis assured him that Steve was in class, so Steve’s absence was no doubt deliberate.

Any other time, Bucky would have asked Phyllis to send a note or would have stopped by the orphanage himself, seeing as it was only ten blocks away, but he knew that Steve had found out about Mary Anne and, for the first time since they’d met, he was avoiding Bucky. On Tuesday Bucky had been grateful that he could delay his conversation with Steve, but now he was faced with spending all day working out the new schedules with Mary Anne at the factory, unable to give her an answer or even return her tentative smiles. 

But Bucky was even more worried about Steve. Steve weathered name-calling and gossip about his size and his failure to find an alpha, he fought everyday at the newspaper for recognition being an omega, and he’d gotten up so many times when literally beaten down, but since they’d met, he’d always had Bucky at his back, inside the shields that protected him from being battered by the cruelty of the world. An attack from within, where Steve was vulnerable, was worse than whatever the people out there could dish out. 

Bucky knew that objectively he didn’t do anything wrong. He and Steve weren’t engaged and they’d barely even kissed. Bucky was completely free to court other omegas and taking Mary Anne out to dinner under his boss’s orders hardly counted as dating. But if Steve felt betrayed, Bucky couldn’t blame him, because until now, there had been no one in Bucky’s life that could hold a candle to his love for Steve. Despite making Steve promise that he wouldn’t find another alpha, the only promise Bucky had ever made to Steve was that they would always remain friends. Bucky would have promised everything in a heartbeat if Steve had asked it of him, but Steve had never asked and Bucky had never thought his attention would stray for even a moment. It seemed naive now to think that they could stay cloaked in the same bubble, without the world seeping into the distance between them, no matter how small that distance might be.

Bucky was supposed to accompany Mary Anne to the apartment complex to organize the omega cooperative, but she had told him to go talk to Steve instead. Bucky had to remind himself that it wasn’t just her being sweet and understanding, even though she _was_ probably exactly that sweet. She did have a horse in this race as well.

Steve was always either incredibly easy to spot or impossible to find. In open, relatively uncrowded spaces Steve’s unique stature made him stand out, even dressed in the same bland suits as everyone else, but with a crowd he was too short to be seen among the masses. Bucky rushed through the Manhattan streets, dodging around businesspeople and street venders to make it to the front of the newspaper’s building before five o’clock. Steve always stayed until his work for the day was done, but Steve never left before the other administrative employees at five. The journalists and the typesetters and the delivery people kept the building humming twenty-four hours a day, meaning that Steve didn’t have to leave at the close of business, so Bucky could be waiting here for hours, 

Bucky ended up reading the copy of the day’s paper that was tacked on a board that spanned the entire front of the building Crime was up and jobs were down, as usual. Clark Gable was getting married again and MGM had apparently written into his contract that he would spend his heats in an omega retreat in order to avoid pregnancy. Japan had just invaded a part of China, though Bucky couldn’t imagine how that would affect him as an orphan kid living in Brooklyn. 

Bucky hadn’t even finished reading the international news when he spotted Steve, tucked under the arm of a tall, older alpha: balding, but still commanding, in a tight, worried-looking way. Steve was clearly uncomfortable being manhandled, but seemed to be making no move to push the man off of him.

Bucky couldn’t help it: he saw red. Deep, beneath the rage, he knew that after his dalliance with Mary Anne, Steve wasn’t his omega anymore - if he ever had been. But Bucky had been protecting Steve for years and he certainly wasn’t going to stop now just because Steve had been avoiding him for a few days.

“Hey, you,” Bucky said, getting right up in the alpha’s face, completely aware that he was a 17-year-old orphan dressed in a rumpled, barely presentable suit, facing down a bigger, older, wealthier alpha. “Get your hands off him.”

The gentleman didn’t flinch, only stared down at Bucky dispassionately, as though a response wasn’t even worth his time.

“Bucky, Bucky,” Steve protested, grabbing at Bucky’s lapels and trying to force him back. “This is my boss, Mr. Levinson.”

Bucky still pushed forward, even though Steve had forced himself between them. The calm, unconcerned stare only made Bucky want to wring the man’s neck.

“Who is this, Rogers?”

“This is James,” Steve panted, tucking himself up against Bucky’s side and leaning his head into the crook of Bucky’s neck in a typical display of omega submission. Bucky was so shocked that he stumbled a step back from Levinson. But the position that Steve never took with Bucky didn’t shock him half as much as the next words to come out of Steve’s mouth: “He’s my alpha.”

Bucky couldn’t believe it. He _did_ think of Steve as his omega and Steve wasn’t mad at him for doing so with his Rockafeller’s classmates, even though it always made Bucky feel guilty, considering that they’d never really discussed formal courtship. Was it really so farfetched that Steve would consider Bucky his alpha? It wasn’t as though there were any other contenders for the title. They both always denied their relationship at the orphanage, for Mother Maria’s sake, but Steve was as free to be open about it at work as Bucky was. 

Levinson took a step closer, examining Bucky with his sharp, hawk-like gaze and forcing Steve even closer against Bucky’s body. Steve’s muscles tensed, trembling slightly against Bucky’s side, but Levinson didn’t seem to see that. Instead he smiled passively, reaching out a hand to grip Bucky’s in an almost painfully firm handshake. Bucky was more concerned with putting himself between Steve and this man who Steve only appeared to be tolerating because he couldn’t afford to lose his job. It made Bucky’s protective alpha instincts almost purr to be able to take care of Steve this way, considering how rarely Steve let him take care of him these days. 

“Congratulations,” Levinson said, “you’ve found yourself a wonderful young omega.” Bucky could tell from the look in his eyes that Levinson didn’t really believe that. He didn’t look like the kind of alpha who would be interested in a mouthy omega like Steve and he certainly didn’t seem to respect Steve as a member of the workplace, based on how he’d been manhandling him.

Levinson turned his stern gaze to Steve. “You never told me that you had an alpha. I wouldn’t have expected that from an ambitious little thing like you, so determined to ignore how you stir up my journalists with your quest to be treated like an alpha.” He chuckled indulgently. If he was aware of the tense jut of Steve’s jaw in response to his patronizing tone, he didn’t show it.

“It wasn’t relevant to my work, Sir,” Steve forced out. Bucky put his arm around him, stroking Steve’s tense shoulders gently, the way he used to when he would comfort Steve through his sickness.

“Like hell it’s not relevant, boy.” He turned to Bucky, as though Steve were not there. “Isn’t that just the quaintest thing? How he pretends that he’s just another member of my staff?”

Bucky was amazed that Steve kept his big mouth shut around this man. But then again, Steve was the only omega at the office and he had always been much better at standing up for others than he was at standing up for himself. Bucky bristled - he had never once thought of Steve as quaint or cute or adorable like the jerks from the omega socials. But Levinson looked as though he actually wanted a response to his idiotic question, so Bucky nodded, stiffly.

“Does he do this at home?”

Bucky shrugged in an attempt to appear nonchalant when every muscle in his body was coiled tight. “He is my equal at home,” Bucky said, turning to Steve and taking in his grateful, almost disbelieving smile. “He’s just as smart as I am, if not smarter, and, thanks to you, he has a good job. I may be the alpha, but I’d be a fool to ignore his opinion.”

“I didn’t know I’d be inadvertently supporting this omega revolution,” Levinson grumbled. “But I agree that Rogers is clever. In fact, I was just taking him out for dinner to celebrate his promotion to staff cartoonist.”

Something uncomfortable settled in Bucky’s stomach. It was difficult to believe that the editor of a daily paper would be taking his typist out to dinner during the middle of the rushed time for the news, even if he was becoming a cartoonist. And there was the way he’d had his arm around Steve and the faint whiff of a territorial challenge he was giving off. 

“I shouldn’t have promoted him without consulting his alpha first. Forgive me, I didn’t know Steve had an alpha to consult. You must be newly together - no first joint heat - because I have an impeccable sense of smell and I didn’t smell you on him.” Levinson looked down his nose at Bucky.

Bucky plastered on a fake smile. “We’ve known each other since before differentiation, Sir. But we only just moved beyond friendship.” They’d barely moved beyond friendship, but it wasn’t a lie. “Steve has been his own man the entire time he’s known me. I didn’t think for a second that he would need my permission.”

“Ah, young love,” Levinson continued, his tone indicating that he thought it was only a matter of time before Bucky grew out of being a decent person. “Just so we have everything cleared up: I do have your support to make Steve a cartoonist?”

Bucky looked quickly to Steve for permission. Steve didn’t look happy, but he nodded. Even with his stubborn streak a mile wide, Steve wasn’t going to turn down an actual artist job just because the editor, like most alphas, didn’t see Steve as an equal. “Steve has my support.”

“Good. Now, let’s get that dinner.”

Bucky tucked his arm around Steve as they walked, puffing his chest out slightly even though he knew Steve would hate that. Bucky wasn’t used to having an omega on his arm. Mary Anne had made Bucky feel powerful that day in the park, but Steve felt like he was built to fit into the crook of Bucky’s arm -- he felt _right_.

“Of course,” Levinson mentioned with that shrewd carefree air that wasn’t carefree at all, “knowing that he has an alpha will change Rogers’ contract terms. We’ll have to have you both sign a new one.”

Bucky winced. He didn’t relish signing for Steve on any official forms, but few employers bothered to check the statements of their new hires against the government records, especially when the promotion was within the same company. 

“What changes about the contract because Steve has an alpha?”

“Little things.” Levinson shrugged. “He gets an extra day off per heat. His work schedule must be signed off by you. He’s not to be left alone with any unmated alphas. Terms for paternity leave.”

“Oh.” Bucky had no idea it was that complicated. “We’re not planning to start a family anytime soon. Most of those provisions aren’t needed.”

Levinson chuckled. “We’ll see how long that lasts once you have consummated your relationship. Prophylactics have their uses for those too poor to afford children, I suppose, but it’s much better to not have to bother with those pesky little things. You’ll see.” He winked at Bucky. When Bucky didn’t respond, he frowned. “You _do_ have a good job, don’t you?”

“I work as a foreman at a textile mill,” Bucky said, exaggerating his role slightly.

“Hmm. Blue collar. But a position in management is an achievement at your age.” He patted Bucky on the shoulder awkwardly.

Bucky smiled stiffly as Levinson ushered them inside a restaurant that Bucky passed every day on his way to work but never in a million years thought he would be able to afford. All of the tables were made up with clean white tablecloths and set with candles and fresh flowers. Bucky would sometimes glance inside the big glass windows as he passed, gazing in on the omegas in beautiful dresses and suits, staring across the table at a wealthy alpha. Despite the high, intricate ceiling, the room was warm - warmer than anywhere they spent time in the winter. 

“Mr. Levinson,” the maitre d’ said with a saccharine smile. “I have you down for a candlelit booth for two at the back.” When Bucky cleared his throat pointedly, the man looked abashed. “I’m sorry, Mr. Levinson. Your secretary said that you would be entertaining - your usual.”

Levinson seemed to be pretending that he didn’t hear the man’s mistake or his nervous bumbling upon realizing it. He merely gestured for the man to lead them farther into the restaurant, which he did, finding a larger booth for them, despite the fact that the place had already started filling up. If Levison was disappointed that he couldn’t carry out his “usual” with Steve, he didn’t show it.

It was only after an aborted attempt from Levinson that Bucky remembered to pull out Steve’s chair for him. It wasn’t something Steve ever tolerated and in the local dives in Brooklyn that they usually frequented, nobody noticed if Bucky missed a few points of etiquette. 

They sat mostly in silence while reviewing the menu for the evening. It was a French restaurant, so even with Steve translating the individual items, Bucky didn’t know half the dishes on there. He ended up picking at random.

“So, tell me boys, when is the wedding? I can’t promise I’ll attend, but I would send a gift.”

“Um, we haven’t, uh, set a date yet,” Steve stammered.

“Oh?” Levinson scowled. “I hope you don’t plan any nonsense before marriage. If finances are what worries you, I would be happy to offer you an advance, Rogers. I’m sure, in the interest of preventing moral turpitude, your factory manager would agree.”

Bucky laughed to himself. He highly doubted Mr. Patterson had any interest in moral turpitude or the lack thereof. If only Levinson knew about Patterson’s marriage plans for Bucky. 

“Nothing like that, Mr. Levinson,” Bucky assured him. “We’re simply waiting until we both turn eighteen for marriage or, um, anything else. Steve is still living with the monks and nuns at the orphanage and I am in alpha transitional housing. We’re working to get a little saved up before we can live together.”

The whole idea seemed too steeped in poverty for Levinson to even understand, but he nodded, as though coming to an internal resolution. “That’s thrifty business, I suppose.”

Luckily, dinner arrived quickly, allowing them to lapse into silence while Bucky tried to figure out why he needed so many forks for his meal, though the veal dish he had ordered was delicious. 

“Besides, Bucky needs to finish at Rockafeller’s before we can get married,” Steve added. Bucky was surprised that Steve bothered to contribute to this fiction at all.

“Rockafeller’s? That school out in Brooklyn?”

Steve nodded.

“That’s not a bad place. Are you considering a university?”

“As a matter of fact,” Bucky said, eagerly. “I have been thinking about Harvard.”

Levinson laughed, before he took in Bucky’s serious expression. Steve also looked surprised, though he had reason to be - before his conversation with Mary Anne, Bucky hadn’t even thought about anything outside New York. “Oh, well, I suppose anything is possible. When I was there we did have a few students who were attending without tuition - at the pleasure of the Dean or something like that. Of course it would be another city. I don’t imagine you’ve ever been to Boston.”

Bucky and Steve shook their heads.

“It’s not a bad place. Hardly the center of culture that you’ll find here, but they have more than a few credible colleges if you can stand the town. If I were you, I’d set my sights closer to home. It’s not Harvard, but Columbia is a fine institution and that way I can keep Steve here while you attend. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Steve?”

Steve offered a stiff smile, still shooting Bucky questioning looks out of the corner of his eye. 

“You know, for the longest time, I thought this boy was just another omega secretary. He deals with non-urgent items that my full-time secretaries are too busy to handle. I didn’t want someone who was still going to school, but I think Andy, my main secretary, felt bad for him. Andy, bless him, has a real bleeding heart. I expect he’ll get swept up by one of those society alphas at a charity ball one of these days. But this one is a hard worker,” Levinson put his arm on Steve’s shoulder, patting him in praise. Bucky dropped one of his many fancy forks his hands shook so badly from watching another alpha manhandle his omega. 

“These part-timers never last long - alphas just take the job in hopes of promotion and the omegas get pregnant, never to return. Steve’s the first one whose name I ever learned. Most of them just stay at the desk and don’t make eye contact. But Steve is something else! He’d finish all his work and half of Andy’s each day and he’d go out and get the most delicious coffee beans from who knows where and _then_ I find out that he draws, because I was telling him off for distracting my advertising illustrator. And, boy, what a talent.”

Bucky genuinely smiled for the first time all night. It was just like Steve to make an impression on even the most boring, business-minded, alpha chauvinist bastard out there. 

“Of course you must know. You’re his alpha. I never would have thought to hire an omega cartoonist before my outrageous, philandering political cartoonist came down with a case of the French Pox. One of our columnists was claiming to fill the gap for a while, but it turns out the man can’t even draw a credible circle - he was using your omega to do all the drawings and the boy didn’t even complain. He just wanted to help out the paper. Can you imagine that?”

Bucky smiled. “Steve’s always been very helpful around the orphanage. He still helps the monks with the books.”

“I’m surrounded by bleeding hearts,” Levinson complained. “Though in this case, it has only been an asset. We hired a new woman for the political cartoons, but these comic strips are becoming so popular. I decided to hire your omega to illustrate a few. He has this one about a genie. It’s not funny, but we’re going to give it a shot anyway. I showed it to my children - they love the Defender and his sidekick. I caught them playing pretend about it the other day. There are a couple of humorous ones too, but Steve’s just doing the illustrations for those.”

“You know,” Steve interjected. He’d been quiet the whole dinner. “James and I came up with the Defender and Bullseye together when we were children.”

“You’re still children as far as I’m concerned,” Levinson laughed.

“We used to make little books for the kids at the orphanage. James was supposed to be the Defender and I was Bullseye,” Steve said, reaching over to grab Bucky’s hand. When Levinson looked a little wary, he added. “That was before we differentiated. Obviously, Bullseye isn’t meant to be an omega.” The bitter note in Steve’s voice was subtle, but it was still there after all these years.

Bucky squeezed Steve’s hand back, hoping to convey that he still thought of Steve as a hero. Steve turned to him with such a look of gratitude and love that Bucky wondered how he could ever have let Mary Anne even kiss him when there was the possibility that Steve could be his in only a year’s time.

Steve’s blue eyes were small, but their depths seemed fathomless. Bucky had memorized every quirk to those lips, ever pock-mark and scar on the baby-smooth skin of his face, even the patchy patterns of the beard that Steve would occasionally try to grow in only to give up after realizing how ridiculous it looked.

“Well, isn’t that a picturesque romance,” Levinson remarked dryly, looking perturbed for the first time that evening. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I do have a paper to run. Please stay and order dessert, on me.”

Bucky and Steve both stood to shake hands and give Levinson their thanks. Bucky had come here to talk with Steve, but now that they were finally alone he found that he was a little scared of how that conversation would go.

He gestured for Steve to sit down across from him in Levinson’s seat and they stared at each other for a moment, both wondering how to begin.

“Cartoonist?” Bucky said at the same moment Steve asked, “Harvard?”

They both laughed awkwardly. Apparently they’d both done a lot in the few days they’d spent apart.

“Mr. Levinson explained it to you,” Steve said. “He just offered me the job today. I wasn’t hiding anything from you.” Despite his statement, Bucky could tell that Steve felt a little guilty.

“I didn’t know that you were helping with the political cartoons. I would’ve picked up a paper.” Steve looked skeptical, considering how Bucky never felt the need to read the paper even when Steve brought over a copy for him. “Okay, maybe I wouldn’t have. But I would have tried to take a look at your drawings at least.”

“I promised John I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“That means your colleagues at work, not your best friend.” Bucky cuffed Steve playfully on the back of the head like they always had, only to realize too late that people were staring at them. It wasn’t usual for an alpha to treat his omega that way, but only in private. They both ended up smiling sheepishly at the few diners who had noticed and Steve ended up having to scootch over practically into Bucky’s lap to show that his alpha wasn’t publically knocking him around. “Wait,” he whispered, realizing that Steve had never even told him about the columnist, despite going on and on about his conversations with the illustrators and cartoonists, “you mean you wouldn’t tell anybody about the political cartoons?”

“Yeah. What else would we be keeping a secret?” After a pregnant pause, Steve frowned, shoving away from Bucky. “Oh. You think I’ve been running around with an alpha from work when you’ve been out on a date with your boss’s daughter while she’s wearing courting colors? That’s rich, Bucky, real rich.”

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” Bucky snapped. “You blow hot and cold. You don’t get to tell me who I can see and who I can’t.”

Steve looked pained, his eyes darting around to the other patrons of the restaurant. “Can we talk about this somewhere else?”

“No,” Bucky insisted. “I’ve had enough of not talking about it.”

Their waiter seemed to take the pause in the conversation as an opportunity to ask about dessert. Bucky asked for apple pie - Steve’s favorite dessert, without looking at the menu. They ended up with a fancy glazed apple tart that Bucky barely tasted going down.

“Fine,” Steve snapped. “If we’re going to talk about this then I want you to tell me the truth about you and Mary Anne.”

“Look, nothing happened. She’s my friend and we’re working on a new plan for the factory, like I told you.” That much was true, though to some people a kiss wasn’t “nothing.” It probably meant something to Steve.

“What kind of idiot do you take me for, Bucky? I heard from Mr. Smith exactly how this beautiful omega friend of yours was dressed. Don’t tell me it was nothing.”

“But it wasn’t anything!” Bucky protested, even though a small flutter in his stomach was desperately trying to remind him that he’d certainly felt a little of something, even if it didn’t hold a candle to what he felt for Steve. “She’s wearing red because her father wants her to find an alpha but I’m not courting her.” Bucky was perfectly aware that his date with Mary Anne could easily be construed as courting, but it had all been imposed by his boss. He very clearly had not asked Mary Anne for permission to begin the formal courtship process.

 

Steve was breathing rapidly in his anger, but hadn’t started to wheeze yet. “If you’re not courting her, then what were you two doing down in Brooklyn in her dad’s fancy car?”

“She wanted to see Brooklyn!” Bucky protested, his anger at being interrogated getting the better of his guilt. “I’ve been telling her all these stories about you and me and the orphanage and the neighborhood and how wonderful it is. I didn’t exactly enjoy playing the safari-man taking the rich Manhattan lady for a trip to the wilds of Brooklyn, but I would have felt like a cad if I told her how great everything was and then wouldn’t let her see it.”

“And if you didn’t feel guilty, why didn’t you tell me about her sooner? If she is your friend and not just some secretary?”

“She was working a lot like a secretary when I hurt my arm. I told you about her, just not that she was Patterson’s daughter. I don’t tell you everything that happens to me at work. It’s not a lie.”

“Fine. But you did lie about her coming to your building. I might not deserve a say in who you step out with, but you’re my friend. Friends don’t lie to each other.”

“I didn’t lie to you.” Steve didn’t even give Bucky a chance to lie to him.

“You told the others to lie to me.”

“I didn’t want them to tell you before I had a chance to talk to you!” Bucky protested. In truth, he wasn’t sure if he would have told Steve about his date with Mary Anne, even though he planned to make a decision about Mr. Patterson’s offer only after talking to Steve. Still, Steve hadn’t even given him the chance to decide to keep a secret. 

Steve stared at Bucky for a long moment. Bucky felt his guilt scurry deep into the nooks and crags of his mind, seeking shelter from Steve’s penetrating gaze. Bucky was on the verge of admitting to everything - the kiss, the offer Mr. Patterson proposed, the fact that up until Steve had said Bucky was his alpha to Mr. Levinson he had even been thinking of taking it. But then Steve nodded. “Okay. That’s fair. Maybe I _have_ been blowing this out of proportion. I just don’t want you to ever feel you need to lie to protect me, Buck. I know I’m not the kind of omega that alphas hope for and--”

“No, Steve,” Bucky grabbed Steve’s hand with renewed fervor. “You’re perfect. I certainly wouldn’t complain if you’d be a little more affectionate with me, but I love you exactly the way you are.”

“That’s good to hear, Bucky,” Steve blushed, ducking his head. “I know you love me. And I . . . I love you too.” 

Bucky couldn’t help himself. He darted in to press a quick kiss to Steve’s lips. When he pulled back, Steve was grinning, ignoring the looks they were now getting from the other patrons.

Still, it seemed as though Steve couldn’t just let things go. He looked ready to burst from the things that he hadn’t yet said. They loved each other and they’d kissed and Steve had called Bucky his alpha. Bucky wasn’t sure he could handle anything else for today or that he could even _hear_ anything through the happy haze that seemed to have settled around him like the fog that clung to the docks at sunrise. “I love you so much, Bucky. And that’s not going to change, no matter what. Even if you do find a proper omega, I’ll still love you and I’ll still be your friend. You don’t have to lie to me. I’m strong enough to handle it. You don’t have to spare my feelings. The only thing I can’t take is if you’re dishonest with me.”

Bucky didn’t understand why Steve was so on about this lying thing. He believed that nothing had happened with Mary Anne and he believed that Bucky loved him. “I’m not--”

Steve squeezed Bucky’s hand to forestall the protest. “I’m not suggesting that you’re lying to me now. I trust you. If you say nothing happened, then I believe you. I’m talking about the future. If something does happen--”

“It won’t.”

“I know you think it won’t, but if it does--”

“Nothing is going to happen!” Bucky protested. “She already kissed me and still nothing happened.”

Steve scowled. “A beautiful, intelligent, rich omega kissing you isn’t nothing.”

“It is nothing to me!” Bucky found himself shouting, startling a woman in a large feathered hat to drop her soup spoon with a clatter and a gasp. One of the waiters looked as though he was going to come kick them out, but Bucky smiled at him placatingly, keeping the firm grip he only now realized he’d taken of Steve’s wrist. “I don’t care how beautiful or intelligent or rich she is. She’s not you.”

Steve crossed his hands across his chest defiantly. He looked gorgeous, blazing with indignation and the kind of passion Bucky was sure he’d never find in a charm school omega, even one that he liked as much as Mary Anne. “I’m not the catch you think I am, Bucky.”

“Well, I say that you’re more of a catch than you give yourself credit for.”

“So you’re saying that you didn’t enjoy that kiss,” Steve said with a raised eyebrow.

Bucky covered his nervousness with a roll of his eyes. “You ain’t gonna find a dame or a fella who doesn’t enjoy a proper kiss.”

“So it was a _proper_ kiss?”

“Yes, it was. It was even a _good_ kiss. But that’s all it was. She was wearing _red_ , Steve, and I didn’t move for more than that. Can’t you see that I’m too hung up on you to spare more than an appreciative glance for anyone else?”

“But you _are_ appreciative.”

Steve could be infuriating when he really dedicated himself to picking a fight, verbal or otherwise. “You’ve milked all the gossip out of Phyllis by now. You know that Mary Anne isn’t a chore to look at. She’s beautiful and I like her, but I sure as hell ain’t in love with her.”

Steve nodded, sighing. “You’ve always got to make everything so difficult, you punk. I know I don’t have a chance in hell of you listening now, but maybe it’ll plant some seed in your head for the future. If at any point you think you could be happy with this Mary Anne, you should take it. I don’t want to be a society omega or a house omega or really any kind of omega.”

“You can be any kind of omega you damned well please, Steve. I don’t care.” There was more than a good chance that Bucky would be happy with Mary Anne if being with Steve weren’t an option, but Steve seemed to be saying that he _was_ an option and Bucky would never be happy if he turned down Steve in favor of Mary Anne. If Steve cared enough to call Bucky his alpha and he cared enough to get jealous, then he cared enough to be with Bucky. “It’s you I want and I’ll only settle for second best if you can tell me to my face that you don’t want anything to do with me. Can you do that?”

Steve looked away, wringing his hands nervously. “You know I can’t do that, Bucky.”

Bucky stood, pulling Steve with him before he could protest. “Good. Then it’s settled. You’re my omega and I’m your alpha and Mary Anne is my good friend, with whom I will fight for the plight of of the workers.”

Of course, Steve never knew when to shut up. “I’m serious, Bucky. I’m not going to find another alpha - you don’t have anything to be jealous of. But I’m never going to be normal. We’ll still be friends, no matter what.”

“Yeah, I’ll go off and marry Mary Anne and leave you all alone? I don’t think so.” Bucky had thought, if they were being honest, he might be able to tell Steve about the real reason he had even been out with Mary Anne to begin with and the forty dollars that was burning a hole in his pocket, but if Steve was already feeling this down on himself, he would never let Bucky turn down the girl and rich lifestyle marrying her could provide. Bucky resolved to never let him find out.

Bucky pulled Steve with him, ignoring the waiters and waitresses that floated by with the dinner rush. Once they were outside, tucked up in a corner away from the glare of the streetlight, Bucky leaned down to kiss Steve, slow and tender this time.

“I want to be yours, Steve,” Bucky gasped, his breath frosting in the cold air. “I don’t care if you’re normal. I want to be yours.”

***

Bucky tucked himself up against Steve as they stood on the front porch of a small white house in a neighborhood of small white houses at the back of Fort Hamilton. The fort wasn’t a very long walk from the orphanage, but the wind had been strong today, so strong that it had made Steve stumble more than once. Steve was too proud to let Bucky guide him, so Bucky settled for letting Steve put his arm around him like he was the alpha. 

Steve knocked on the door, practically bouncing with anticipation. Steve had kept in touch ever since they met Major Phillips and Jack in the park all those years ago, writing letters and sending drawings for the kids. Jack visited more than the major, because he came from a family of New Yorkers, but whenever either of them was in town, they made sure to stop by the orphanage to take Steve and Bucky out for an ice cream or a walk in the park. Bucky thought that they both still felt bad that they hadn’t been able to adopt when Sister Madeline asked.

Now, Major Phillips had been transferred to Fort Hamilton and had invited Steve and Bucky down to their new home for a housewarming party. For the occasion, Steve carried a wilting, wane tomato plant under one arm. He’d cultivated it from seeds in Bucky’s windowsill ever since he’d received a letter from Jack sending them news of the transfer.

Bucky bounced on his heels with a slight case of nerves. Steve was closer to the Phillips family. In fact, he was the only one who really kept in touch with them. Bucky felt he was imposing, intruding on the personal relationship that Steve had developed with them. Bucky often felt that way. Steve was the friendly one and Bucky was just his sidekick, now alpha.

The jubilation of a few days ago had faded and Bucky had come to realize that even though nothing could make him happier than Steve finally accepting that Bucky was his alpha, it left them in a bit of a financial bind. Steve’s eighteenth birthday was still a year and a half away, but Bucky needed to be working that whole time, not just to support himself, but to save up enough money to take care of Steve. Even if Bucky _did_ decided to go to college and not keep a working-class job, he would have to depend on his savings. Harvard was certainly out of the question without Mr. Patterson’s help and even the local colleges were costly and would take time.

Bucky needed to keep his job at the factory, where at least he knew that Mr. Patterson would keep his hours reasonable and his wage good. He was skilled enough to be an operations manager, not just a foreman, but nobody other than Patterson was going to hire a sixteen-year-old to do that job. Bucky could start out at another factory and work his way up the ranks, but he’d need to work full time, which meant school was out of the question and so was the ticket out of poverty that had seemed so promising only days ago when he and Mary Anne talked about Harvard. He’d been too swept up in the idea of it to really understand the implications. It was Mary Anne and a good job and an education or Steve and just barely making it. 

Bucky couldn’t pick anything other than Steve. He had to pick Steve. But he still hadn’t told Mary Anne about his decision. It was a tough pill to swallow and Bucky would take his luck while it still held. Last night Steve had initiated a french kiss with Bucky that had lasted what seemed like ages. He still shied away from anything more, but it had been enough to set Bucky on this course - for better or for worse.

After nobody answered the door, Steve shrugged and knocked again before retreating to the warmth of Bucky’s arms. He even let Bucky pull him against his chest and wrap his coat around them both while Bucky rested his chin on the top of Steve’s head.

Finally after a long moment, the door opened a crack. At first it appeared that nobody was there, but then Bucky looked down to find two deep brown eyes staring up at him curiously. Steve immediately smiled, breaking out of Bucky’s embrace. “Nicky,” he said, crouching down to the child’s level. “You’ve gotten so big. How’s my favorite little soldier?”

Steve was so good with the kids, letting Bucky hang back and enjoy the smile they brought to his face. Steve would make a great father one day. Bucky wished he had those omega instincts. Instead he was too serious and awkward around the children. He let Steve take the lead. 

“Nicholas Fury Phillips!” came a shout from somewhere in the house. “How many times do have to tell you not to open that there door. It’s dangerous, child! You don’t know who’d come here. Too many people would do you some harm for what you is.”

Nick disappeared from the entranceway, scooped up against a tall negro woman’s hip when the door finally opened all the way. Bucky had met Jack’s Aunt Milly a few times, when he and Steve had been invited into her crowded apartment in Harlem, where the family gathered whenever Jack and the Colonel were in town. Jack’s father had died in childbirth without ever revealing the identity of the mother or father, so he had been raised by his Aunt Milly, his father’s oldest sister - the oldest of six. 

“Well, children, what are you waiting for? Lord, I can already feel the heat from that fancy wood stove escaping. Get yourselves in here!” Steve and Bucky raced to comply, eager to get out of the cold themselves. “Just look at you, boy,” she scolded, patting Steve’s frost-pinked cheek once they were both inside. “Aunt Milly needs to fatten you up.”

“Don’t you worry yourself about the heat, Milly,” came Colonel Phillips’s low drawl. “The wood for the fire comes to us on Uncle Sam’s dime. And if you can succeed in fattening Steve-o up, then you’ll truly be a miracle worker.” The Colonel lifted Nick out of her arms and immediately set him down on the scuffed wooden floor in order to run off to where Bucky heard the screeches of his many cousins. 

“Colonel Phillips,” Bucky said, almost tempted to salute. Even though he’d known Colonel Phillips since childhood, he felt the need to show his submission to such an obviously dominant alpha. 

The Colonel regarded Bucky’s offered hand with skepticism, eventually shaking it, but only as leverage to pull Bucky into a hug. “Good to see you, kiddo. Though look at you; you’re halfway to being a big strong alpha.” He looked between Bucky and Steve, scrutinizing. Bucky was sure that he was trying to determine whether or not they were together yet. The Colonel and Jack treated their marriage as an inevitability, a reassurance that kept Bucky going when he was at his most insecure. In the end, the colonel seemed to have decided against saying anything. “Come in boys. Everyone’s already here, except Cousin Rose. Her wife’s on her heat, so if we forgive their absence, maybe we can expect a new cousin in about nine months.” Bucky and Steve knew better than to ask why none of the other officers had come to welcome the family to the neighborhood. It was better with just the family anyhow.

Jack’s family was huge, with each of the five remaining aunts and uncles having plenty of children and those children having long since started to have children. Some had moved out of New York with the depression, desperately seeking jobs wherever they could be found. But many stayed in New York and they all seemed to be crammed into the small living and dining rooms in the well-worn, but upscale downstairs of the house. Bucky didn’t envy Colonel Phillips the challenge of getting that many negroes onto the base and into the officer’s on-base housing, but Colonel Phillips was stubborn to a fault and the treatment of his husband due to his race was the thing he was most stubborn about. He bore the scorn of his white colleagues and the awkward suspicion of some of the members of Jack’s family, but he fought hard to keep his children from feeling as though they were any different from any other kids, either black or white.

Jack was ecstatic about Steve’s tomato plant and took it right to the kitchen windowsill where it would get some sun. He was pregnant again, obviously and enormously so. This child rode so far in front and so round that it almost looked as though Jack was wearing a bowling ball under his red sweater. Steve stepped right up and gave him what hug he could with his belly in the way. Bucky was more wary; that big belly really did look as though the slightest movement might cause it to pop.

In the end, Bucky ended up shaking Jack’s hand and retreating to the kitchen, where he was allowed for only a minute before he was shooed out as an alpha in the omega’s domain. Bucky felt out of place, settling into a corner and hoping to disappear into the background. A few of the older omega children might approach him at some point. Omegas liked Bucky and his pretty face and his unassuming manner. But Bucky knew his place and his place was to hang back until he was needed. He was a useful guy to have around but no more than a tool to be removed from the shelf and replaced when its task was done. He was an outsider here, among family, and outsider at Rockafeller’s, and outsider at the factory. He didn’t mind being an outsider. As an orphan it suited him, but he had come to learn that the people who ran the world were on the inside track with their inside deals - like Mr. Patterson and Mary Anne. 

Bucky wanted to hope that he and Steve could make it out in the world that seemed to be playing a game they didn’t understand with a deck that was stacked against them. But Bucky now had a taste of what it felt like to be on the inside, with a family that would help and support you to achieve your goals. He didn’t want an easy life. He was a hard worker and a good one. He just wanted to know that if he worked hard enough, he’d have enough to not just survive, but to thrive.

Bucky stood, ignoring the loud chatter around him - family gossip and tales of the day-to-day life in Harlem. Steve was chasing Nick and two other shrieking boys back up the stairs to their bedroom where one of their uncles was watching all the children. Steve was flushed, with a wide smile on his face. His asthma would act up if he exerted himself more than that, but Bucky contented himself in the knowledge that Steve would soon have the kids gathered around for another tale of the adventures of the Defender and Bullseye.

Still, the ruckus was too much for Bucky’s melancholy mood, so he pulled on his coat to step out onto the porch. His breath misted in the cool air as grey clouds obscured the sun. Snow flurries kicked out with the occasional gust and Bucky stuffed his numbing hands into his pockets as he looked out onto one of the training fields, abandoned for the Sunday holiday. The sky was already darkening, a reminder that they had still not emerged from the depths of winter.

Bucky had begun to hope. Steve always succeeded in making him hope. But things would never be easy. He would never have what he wanted. He was an orphan. He was stupid to expect so much.

“What’s the matter, kid?” Colonel Phillips said, sitting down next to Bucky on the stoop. “You looked like you might’ve been enjoying yourself a minute ago.”

Bucky sighed. He really didn’t need to cry in front of an army Lieutenant Colonel. That was probably grounds for revoking his alpha status. He looked away, discreetly wiping the moisture from the corner of his eye.

“Well, don’t tell me if you don’t want to. I’ll get it out of you eventually.”

“You have a beautiful family, Colonel.” Bucky changed the subject.

“Why, thank you, son. You’re one of a few that thinks so.”

“Well, I’m one of few smart ones, then.” Nick was precocious and so smart - at five years old he’d already killed Steve and Bucky at hide-and-go-seek. And his younger brother Evan was one of the cutest kids Bucky had ever seen. If the Colonel and Jack stuck around for much longer they’d have to worry about Bucky not being able to say no to that kid. And Bucky was sure that the new baby would be just as special - he’d have parents who loved and supported him no matter what. 

“You’ve never left this city, kid, so you don’t know how it is for negroes out in the wide world. Those bastards that’ll give my family trouble at the front gate are nothing compared to the worst of it. There are places where they’d still happily lynch my husband. Hell, they’d lynch me for loving him.” Bucky knew that negroes went to different school, that they didn’t have the same prospects for jobs, that white folks talked down on them sometimes, but the same was true with omegas. Different people had different roles in society and even if Bucky thought a negro omega was just as capable of running a company or flying a plane as a white alpha, that was just the way things were. It was why Steve worked as a secretary and Bucky worked in a factory. It was why Colonel Phillips commanded a battalion and Jack was a nurse even though Jack was obviously the stronger and quicker of the two, even when pregnant. Bucky didn’t like it when he saw bullies harass negroes in the street, but bullies were bullies, they harassed Bucky and Steve too. That was the way people were - they couldn’t climb up without pushing others down beneath them.

“There’s a reason why my children have never seen my hometown in Texas. Maybe it’ll be better here now that I’ve been promoted. Some of my soldiers are racist as all hell and dumb as dirt to boot, but even the dumbest of the dumb aren’t stupid enough to harass the husband of their superior officer and they sure as shit leave his kids alone. At least on this project, the beakers are a progressive lot. They’ll raise all hell if anything happens to Jack or the children. That Stark kid alone could topple the entire R&D division of the armed services if he wanted.”

“Beakers, sir?” Bucky asked.

“Military scientists. The army needs a guy that can follow what the beakers are doing well enough to sort through their funding requests and unfortunately, I’m that guy. Good soldiers win the war, but they can only win it with the best tools. That’s what we’re doing here - testing and training the latest in killing technology. It ain’t pretty, but it’s where I’m useful. I’ve got twenty five years of army bureaucracy under my belt, not to mention an engineering degree that I haven’t used to build a damned thing, but has given me the ability to understand which of the hair brained schemes these guys come up with are worth spending your tax dollars on. They’d fire me for loving the man I love if I weren’t so damned useful.”

Bucky nodded. 

Colonel Phillips smiled then. “This is my long-winded way of telling you that if you want to succeed, then you need to invest in yourself. You have the brains, kid, and the drive. But you and Steve are similar in that way - you just go, go, go hitting your heads against the wall when you should be stepping back and walking around it. You need to plan for your future instead of wasting your potential doing scuttwork in a factory.”

Bucky laughed, humorlessly. Colonel Phillips would get it out of him, after all. “I had a plan. But it’s not a plan for the future I want.”

Colonel Phillips frowned. “If it doesn’t help you, why’d you plan it?”

“Mr. Patterson, the factory owner, offered me a deal,” Bucky admitted. “He doesn’t want to be the floor manager forever, but he wants to keep the business in the family. He has one alpha daughter, but he doesn’t think she has the head for business. He said if I married his omega daughter, the business would be mine. He’d even pay for me to get a degree. The Pattersons are well off. It would be my ticket out of poverty.”

Colonel Phillips nodded. “That’s a good deal.”

“I know it is.”

“Then why are you sitting out here brooding?”

“You know why.” Bucky looked over his shoulder, toward the house where Steve was no doubt getting along with a family he had little in common with.

Colonel Phillips nodded. “We found you as two undifferentiated boys who got beat up kissing in the park. We imagined a happy ending for the two of you. But we don’t always marry our childhood sweethearts. I didn’t. I found my happy ending elsewhere.”

Bucky nodded. “I can’t marry into the good life and leave Steve behind.”

“I don’t think you should worry about Steve. You don’t have to marry him to keep him with you and you don’t have to marry him for him to have a good life too.”

“So you’re telling me that I should take the deal?”

“I think that the last thing that boy needs is your pity. You need to decide what you want and who you want to be with.”

“I want to be with Steve,” Bucky said without hesitation. “But I want to keep my job so I _can_ be with Steve. And if I want to keep my job, I have to be with Mary Anne and if I’m with Mary Anne, I can’t be with Steve.”

“That is a conundrum.”

“I’m willing to work hard. I’m willing to invest in myself, like you said. But I don’t think I can pull it together if Mr. Patterson doesn’t keep me on for the next year.”

Colonel Phillips turned to look long and hard into Bucky’s eyes. After a long moment of scrutiny, he slapped Bucky’s knee hard. “Well, that settles it.”

Colonel Phillips stood, walking back towards the house.

“Settles what?” Bucky demanded, following after him. 

The colonel waived away everyone who tried to fold him back into the conversation, heading for the stairs and the master bedroom. Bucky was unsure of his welcome, but Colonel Phillips held the door open, motioning for Bucky to follow.

“What if I told you there was another option?”

“What do you mean?”

“You see, Steve wrote to me, after you had your accident. He asked me if I could find something else for you that would be safer. Now, the army ain’t exactly safer during wartime, but right now we’re not a war and we take much better care of our soldiers that some slum lords factory owner does his workers. If you’re smart enough to be running maintenance on a factory at sixteen and still earn top grades, you’re smart enough to be an officer.”

Bucky stared at him, shocked. Despite how much he’d always looked up to Colonel Phillips, Bucky had never considered the military as a possibility. Seventeen was the youngest an alpha could enlist, but it would close the door on further education forever and he’d have to move where they told him. That meant he wouldn’t be around to take care of Steve.

“I don’t think I could leave Steve for that long.”

“We thought about that. But, if you’re married, the academy offers housing arrangements for your omega.”

“The academy?”

“Well, yes. If you’re smart enough to earn your stay at Rockafeller’s, then you’re smart enough to be an officer. We’ll have to take steps to make sure you earn an appointment to the academy, but I have a plan for that.”

Bucky was touched that the colonel and Jack had clearly already put a great deal of thought into this.

“Jack and I will adopt you. It doesn’t matter that you no longer live at the orphanage. Brother Charles assured me that it’s legal anytime before you turn eighteen. You’ll move in with us on the base and use whatever money you’ve saved up to pay the tuition on the private school where all the officers send their kids. If you don’t have enough, Jack and I will kick in the difference. You can consider watching the kids when we’re at work your room and board. You’ll stop working at the factory and you’ll spend your free time training. Steve tells me you have very fast reflexes and great vision, but no athletic achievements, so you’ll have to work on that - team sports particularly. I have a few congressmen who owe me favors, or rather they owe Stark favors and Stark owes me plenty. Once they get to know you, I’ll make sure someone sponsors you to West Point.”

“But my savings . . .” Bucky said. He needed that money.

“Once you’re admitted, the cadets are given a stipend and free military housing and medical care for their spouses. You are expected to room with the other cadets and Steve will have to stay in an omega dormitory whenever he’s not in heat, but you’d have more free time to spend with him than you do now. Here, Jack got a little overenthusiastic and got the adoption paperwork and the school admission form already set up.”

Bucky stared at Colonel Philips and the papers he held in his hands incredulously. The military wouldn’t be his first choice, but he’d have a stable career and he’d have Steve. It was more than an orphan kid could hope for. He practically fell forward, embracing Colonel Phillips in numb disbelief. The colonel pat his back with a large, sure hand. 

Finally, things were looking up.


	7. Beginnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve falls in love with Bucky long before they differentiate.

Steve would always remember the day that he met Bucky Barnes. It didn’t start out particularly well. Steve had been sick with yet another chest cold so he was a week and a half behind in classes. He picked up the method of long division easily enough, but felt bad asking his usual number of questions so he could really understand it. And then he wasn’t allowed outside to the yard to play because Brother Franklin was afraid for his health, even though he had desperately missed the company of the other children during his time in the sickroom. Steve was lonely, even though many of the other kids had climbed the old oak tree outside his window to wave at Steve, despite Sister Madeline’s shouts for them to come down before they broke their necks. 

To make matters worse, on his way to supper he’d heard Brother Charles and Mother Maria pouring over the books, looking for money they could use to buy a new kind of respirator that would help with Steve’s frequent bouts of pneumonia. Steve was only ten years old, but he was old enough to know that the orphanage couldn’t afford a $3,000.00 machine, even if it were the only way to keep him alive. Steve hated being a burden and, truth be told, he was scared of what would happen one day if he couldn’t recover. Death itself was a murky thing that Steve tried not to think too much about, but he knew that Brother Charles and Sister Madeline and especially Mother Maria would never forgive themselves for it. Steve didn’t know why they cared about him so much: a young, sickly orphan in an orphanage of young sickly orphans, each with a tale of heartbreak and sorrow that would bruise your heart to bursting and then crush it for good measure. Still, they cared and it warmed Steve inside his fragile, thin chest to know that at least someone would miss him when he was gone.

Steve usually shared his bunk with Anna, a shy girl with a hunched back and dark, serious eyes. There were whispers that of course the two bizarre kids would bunk together, but there were always whispers. Steve found that if he ignored them - if he held his head high and smiled he could eventually make friends with even the kids who grumbled and groaned at his overzealous enthusiasm during class or refused to let him play with them in the yard. And if they didn’t learn to be nice, Steve had faith that God would find a way to make them see the error of their bad temperament. Well, God or the fist of a righteous man or woman who had finally had enough. 

Steve was used to smiling at Anna when he turned in for bed, but Anna had gone through her first heat very early for an omega (or maybe she was older than the order had figured) and she wouldn’t be sharing with him anymore. Steve had watched her writhe and whimper, nervously biting his lip after he climbed up the ladder to the top bunk. He’d held her and stroked her hair while Phyllis rushed to find Sister Madeline, who had taken her off to the room at the back of the omega ward where the omegas spent their heats. There were whispers that Anna wouldn’t have a good life, being an omega who looked as she did. But Steve didn’t imagine life as an alpha would be much better, with her curved spine making the work the orphans could find even more difficult. 

But she was a sweet soul, and kind. Even though he hated to see his friend in pain, he’d relished in the opportunity to be the one comforting for once. Everyone was always so concerned about poor, weak, little Steve, who looked like a strong wind could blow him over, already sitting on the stoop outside death’s door, waiting for a warm welcome. Steve was stronger than people imagined. He’d survived his father’s death in war, escaped his mother’s consumption, and battled nine bouts of pneumonia and lived to tell the tale, as gruesome and unexciting as it was. There was an instinct in him to protect that rarely got nurtured, but he liked to imagine one day, when he got over his sickness, he’d be the one up on the roof helping Mother Maria plug one of the many spring leaks or he’d join the army like his pop and do some good for the country filled with the kind of good people who would talk about buying $3,000.00 machines to save the life of a single, parentless child.

After Steve had deposited Anna in the omega ward, he never expected he’d get another chance to play the protector so soon. But then James Barnes arrived.

There were more whispers, always whispers, that State Orphanage out in Harlem had burned down and that every spare bed would be filled come evening. Steve looked forward to new blood in the orphanage. All the children did. There wasn’t much excitement in the life of an orphan, so even just the fractured stories of lost parents and other, fabled parts of the massive city were examined and polished like precious gems, stored away to form a shoddy picture of the wider world.

Despite the rumblings of excitement to come, Steve had managed to fall into a tired sleep nearly as soon as Sister Madeline called curfew. He did not expect to be awoken by a tremulous, belligerent voice ordering, “Get up.”

Steve blinked blearily up at the figure standing over him. It was a boy, bigger than Steve, but likely no older. The light spilling in the open door from the hallway barely illuminated the boy’s face, leaving only a backlit shadow. Steve imagined the boy was handsome, handsome enough to draw, though the scowl and the shadows made it difficult to tell. His voice told Steve all he wanted to know: it swelled with bravado, but the silence between syllables belied his insecurity.

“My name is Steve Rogers. Pleased to meet you,” Steve said. When she was alive, his momma always told him to be polite to strangers because it wouldn’t do to gamble on the kind of people they’d be. Steve thought she was wrong. The real reason to be polite to strangers was because you should be polite to _everyone_ , since courtesy cost nothing but could mean everything to the right person.

“People call me Bucky,” the other boy said, clearly flummoxed by Steve’s answer. Steve wondered how things must be out in Harlem for the boy to be left confused by a polite introduction. “Now, I want the bottom bunk. So move.”

Steve heard some of the other children whispering, sheets rustling. To Steve’s embarrassment, everyone knew that Brother Franklin didn’t want him in the top bunk and everyone always rallied to protect Steve because he was deemed too weak to defend himself from even the smallest of schoolyard tyrants. Steve preempted them by informing the new kid of this fact and pretending he _wanted_ the top bunk.

In truth, Steve didn’t really want to be up there. While he resented it, he recognized his own weakness. A fall would be dangerous and he could cause trouble if he became too sick to get down on his own. But Steve hated to be told that he _couldn’t_ do something even if that something was an incredibly unwise thing to do, so he didn’t mind the excuse to spend a night or two in a different place. Only after he’d gotten up did he realize that he probably did need the extra blanket that he’d allowed Brother Franklin to force on him.

When the new boy, Bucky, tossed Steve’s extra quilt up to him, Steve couldn’t help but smile in the darkness. He had been right. The bullying behavior had been only fearful bravado, not cruelty. That was good, because Steve wanted to like his new bunkmate and Steve never liked bullies.

***

In fact, the next day, when Bucky was nursing some bruises from the alpha pack that thought they ran the orphanage, Steve got the chance to ignore his own nerves and stand up for his new friend. To Steve’s amazement, Queenie actually apologized to Steve and left Bucky alone based purely on Steve’s word.

After that, Steve made sure he kept his eye on Bucky, just in case someone else gave him a hard time. He caught Bucky going through the box Bobby kept under his bed and he caught him hoarding stale pieces of bread, as though someone might take his own meal away. He even found that Bucky challenged Little Roger, the newest alpha to differentiate, to a wrestling match. That was about three more chances than Steve normally gave a person before he decided that they were just a bad seed that he should steer clear of, but whenever Steve told Bucky that he was in the wrong - that wasn’t the way they did things at Our Lady of Mercy - Bucky always nodded, hanging his head and looking lost. So Steve would put his arm around Bucky’s shoulder, if he could reach it, and tell him that it would all be fine. Steve would protect Bucky from the other kids and from his own bad instincts.

At ten years old, Steve didn’t spare much thought for _why_ he made exceptions and excuses for Bucky. Ten year olds didn’t really sit around contemplating the qualities that made them like or dislike people. But Steve did know that Bucky was bright - brighter than the other students that Steve refused to join his new friend in calling stupid. Steve preferred to think that everyone could learn, but not at the same pace and in the same way. But even under Steve’s standard, Bucky was the only other kid who learned as quickly and as eagerly as Steve and Steve found that he was even quicker and more eager to learn when he had someone like Bucky around to bounce ideas off of. 

Steve also liked that Bucky didn’t treat him as weak. Sure, Bucky looked just as nervous as Brother Franklin when Steve wanted to climb up onto the lower branches of the old oak tree or if he looked like he was coming down with a cold, but unlike the others, Bucky didn’t moan and fret about it. And most importantly, he didn’t laugh when Steve talked about wanting to join the army like his pop or make up stories about traveling around the world like Phileas Fogg or hopping on a train out west to see the Pacific Ocean and maybe even the exotic isles of Hawaii. 

Besides, Bucky really was as great to draw as Steve had imagined the first night they’d met. For a child, Bucky had well-defined features, even through the small amount of baby fat he still carried. His deep-set eyes and dimpled chin caught shadows well and his teeth were only a little crooked, his lips full and his expression often too serious for his years. But a smile would spread over his face like the dawn and even though he looked a little goofy when he was really, really happy, Steve still found him fascinating. He was also the only one who would willingly sit still and let Steve practice drawing him, carefully following what little advice on drawing he could find in the orphanage’s small library. 

Of course, Bucky would demand to be entertained whenever he was made to sit around as Steve’s model. That was how the idea of the Defender and Bullseye was born. Steve and Bucky often played games of the imagination, more so than the other kids, both because they read more stories than the other children and because Steve spent so much time sick that they needed a less physically stressful way to entertain themselves. It was natural to invent alter egos who were more than just orphans - out there fighting for justice in a world that seemed increasingly unjust the more the country sank into bad times.

Steve made Bucky the Defender because he was, in a way, like the misunderstood genie recovering from his time in a lamp. Bucky was powerful, charismatic, and clever. He was a good fighter too; he showed Steve how to fight back against the neighborhood bullies and though Steve didn’t really enjoy the idea of twisting a man’s ballsack or pulling on a girl’s hair, he appreciated the confidence these lessons gave him if he wanted to walk outside alone. Like Bucky, the Defender needed to be taught to rediscover his own tenderness and empathy and when he did, he was brilliant. 

Steve didn’t really think of himself as Bucky’s sidekick, because most of their bad ideas began and ended with Steve, not Bucky. But Steve wasn’t the hero either. He had his uses: like Bullseye, he was small, easily concealed, quick-witted. He watched Bucky’s back and he served as his conscience. Steve wished he could be more, but that would have to be enough.

***

Steve would never forget the moment he realized that he was in love with Bucky Barnes -- _in love_ , not just loving Bucky, because Steve had loved Bucky since almost the day they met.

It was spring and Steve had just recovered from yet another cold. Bucky had been squirming, giving Steve odd smiles and practically vibrating with a secret. Bucky was not very good at keeping secrets, but Steve knew his friend well enough to know when it was a guilty kind of secret and when it was the joyous kind. He’d let Bucky keep this joyous secret for as long as he was able, which, knowing Bucky, would not be very long.

True to form, Bucky blurted out his secret the moment Brother Franklin reluctantly gave his permission for Steve to leave the orphanage grounds again - only if he wrapped himself up in practically every item of clothing that he owned. Bucky had saved up and charmed Sister Madeline into letting them out of Sunday services to watch the Dodgers play the Chicago Cubs during one of the first games of the season.

They left early so that they wouldn’t be overwhelmed by the crowds on the train. On a good day, Steve might have insisted that they walk in order to save the fare money, but he grudgingly admitted that Brother Franklin was right and he was not in good enough health for much more excitement than the game alone would provide. Even Bucky was willing to abandon his grand plan of baseball and adventure when he saw Steve’s paleness in the light of day, but Steve convinced him to proceed. 

Steve hated that he couldn’t be the fun friend who could do everything with Bucky. He hated that he would trap his friend inside on days when he had a cold or that Bucky would spend his free time filling Steve in on what he missed in classes instead of making other friends. Steve even suspected that Bucky had lost the chance to avoid being picked on by several of the neighborhood boys because he didn’t want to abandon Steve to go play stickball in one of the neighborhood’s many low-traffic alleyways like they’d asked him to.

Steve was winded by the time they made the train ride, walked through the crowds and traffic and found themselves standing outside the red brick walls of the stadium.

“Come on,” Bucky said, grabbing Steve’s hand. “I know one of the gate guards who will let us in at Gate A for a dime each.”

Steve stopped, his weight only arresting Bucky’s forward momentum because Bucky hadn’t been expecting any resistance. “You mean you want to sneak in?”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Well, yeah. You want to see what’s going on, don’t you?”

Steve scowled. “Bucky, that’s like stealing.”

“No, it’s just getting a clever upgrade. We’re still paying someone to see the game. If it makes you feel better, we can buy the grandstand tickets anyway. That way, if we get caught, we can just claim we’re lost.”

Even though most of their mischief began and ended with Steve, anything that bordered on larceny started with Bucky. Steve would be more upset about it if he didn’t understand the temptation. They were orphans and they have less than their fair share of joy and fortune and more than enough bad luck. A lot of the other children felt entitled to the things they stole - like it was recompense for their sour lot in life. Bucky knew Steve disapproved, so he didn’t grab extra sweets at the open market or try to sneak a comic at the newsstand. But he would scam the neighborhood boys with card games and slight of hand tricks and he wasn’t above making up sob stories even sadder than his own sad story in order to gain sympathy from the people he and Steve sold candy to over by the bridge. 

Steve put a (temporary) stop to the things that he found out about, but most of Bucky’s antics came from a place of creative trickery and less from greed, so he never considered ending their friendship over them. But even if he did let Bucky slide sometimes, he wasn’t going to be part of defrauding the Dodgers of their admission price, even if the Dodgers had a lot of money and Steve and Bucky had barely any. 

“Pay for the grandstand seats and we’ll sit a little far away. If it’s burning a hole in your pocket, you can spend the bribery money on hot dogs and peanuts.”

“No good, do-gooder,” Bucky groaned, ruffling Steve’s hair in the patronizing way that he knew Steve hated. “I wanted to take you out.”

“One day, you’ll take me out to sit right behind home plate and we’ll be able to pay full price to do it.” Steve wasn’t stupid. He knew, even at his age, that they were dealt a weak hand and the probability of two orphans like them “making” it were slim. But even though he wasn’t stupid enough to believe it was easy or likely, he also wasn’t stupid enough to give up hope before he gave it his best shot.

Bucky rolled his eyes, but bounded off to the ticket stand, returning to Steve like a dog that had just retrieved a duck for its master. He tucked Steve under his arm and lead him through the jostling crowd towards their seats. Steve wondered if maybe Bucky was a little mad at him, despite his soft smile. Steve’s moralism had ruined Bucky’s plans, after all. Maybe he wasn’t just out to show Steve a good time after a harsh illness: maybe he really had been looking forward to sitting in the infield section himself.

But then, once they were seated and Bucky had harassed the peanut man into heading over to their section, Bucky turned to Steve with a smile and said, “Thank you.”

Steve frowned. “What for?” This whole thing was Bucky’s treat.

“For keeping me on the straight and narrow. I don’t know where I’d be without you.” Bucky bumped their shoulders together.

Steve didn’t really know what to say to that, but it didn’t seem as though Bucky wanted a response. Steve wasn’t sure he wanted to think about the answer to that question. Bucky was a good boy on the inside, but even the good boys got weary. Steve believed that a person was always responsible for his or her own actions, even if those actions turned bad. But he also understood how _difficult_ it was to stay good when there was little reward in it. Steve didn’t blame Bucky for needing a little reminding every once and awhile.

Steve turned to say as much to Bucky, but then something stopped him in his tracks. Steve could draw every line of Bucky’s face from memory, but looking at him under the bright, artless spring sunlight, he seemed transformed. The crowd moved in the background like a flock of birds bobbing up and down to the currents of an invisible sea, bright colors and smiling, excited faces that amounted to nothing but a blur in the face of the beauty that Steve suddenly found in his friend. It stole what was little breath the pneumonia had left to Steve.

Bucky was smiling, happy about the upcoming game and completely unconcerned about the slight scolding Steve had given him earlier. Bucky’s baby-faced cheeks quirked up when he smiled, making him look a bit like a chipmunk and though his lips were full and almost pouty most of the time, they pulled into a wide grin when he was happy. His green eyes sparkled and caught the light in a way that made him seem absolutely enthralled, as though every small joy put a gleam of avarice in his eyes. Bucky sucked in life greedily, but whatever joy he took in, he shared and spread around almost immediately.

Steve had always known that Bucky was beautiful. He didn’t need to be an artist to see that. In fact, before they smelled him, a fair number of alphas always looked at him with unconcealed desire. And Steve had always been drawn to Bucky - they were best friends for a reason. But this was the first time that Steve had ever looked at anyone and _wanted_. 

For a moment he panicked, wondering if he was differentiating. He was already of the age when it was possible and quickly creeping up into the age when it was common. He took a deep breath, trying to take in the scents around him, looking for the sharpness that Brother Charles described as the “knowing” of the world. Sister Madeline always smiled indulgently when she heard this and took any children who worried aside and assured them that they would know it when it was upon them - there was no mistaking it. In fact, they’d be lucky if the change in smells wasn’t so overwhelming that it made them vomit. 

Steve didn’t feel like vomiting. The only stench was the familiar over-ripe sweetness of too many bodies crammed into one place, the smell of meat on a grill and beer and coca cola spilled on wood and brick. Even Bucky, as glorious as he suddenly appeared, did not smell distinct from the crowd. 

Steve continued to stare, even when Bucky yanked him to his feet, one hand over his heart to sing along with the national anthem. Gravely, untrained voices and boisterous offpitch squawking drowned out the few decent voices around them, but Steve’s eyes were glued to the practiced movement of Bucky’s lips, the innocent face that he cultivated when Mother Maria forcibly recruited him for the local church choir. Bucky looked like an angel, though with his naughty streak, perhaps a fallen one.

He winked at Steve when he caught him staring, but didn’t appear self-conscious. That was probably the thing that Steve loved best about his friend: Bucky would twist his smile and his demeanor to charm the pants off a person, but when it came to being himself, he was carefree and without regret. 

Unlike Steve, he didn’t worry about differentiation. He would be a solid, athletic young omega with those cherubic features and sly smile, a glowing picture of health and promise for strong children. Or he’d be a puckish alpha whose street smarts and jaunty charm would draw in even the most innocent and pristine omega. Bucky would always make the most of the hand he was dealt - that was just what it meant to be Bucky barnes.

Steve himself tried not to think too much about differentiation, particularly about the possibility that he would differentiate as an omega. He didn’t see omegas as weak, like some alphas did. He didn’t see anything _wrong_ with differentiating as one, especially when an omega could stay at Our Lady of Mercy until the age of eighteen instead of being ousted into a bad job and poor wages at sixteen at the latest. But even though it wasn’t wrong, it wasn’t for Steve.

Steve knew the stories well. He knew of the origins of alpha and omega.

According to Brother Charles, God created Eve as a sweet, delicate flower. She was the crown jewel in God’s treasure trove of living creatures: utterly unique, devastatingly beautiful, pure and untouched by the politics of heaven. But her uniqueness bred loneliness, her beauty was steeped in sadness, and her purity was maintained by boredom and lack of experience. So God took one of her rib bones and carved from it Adam, as protector and companion - the guardian of her innocence and the distraction from the world outside the garden walls. 

It was only Eve, in her innocence, that could be tempted by the snake. It was only Eve, in her boredom, that would hunger for the knowledge of the apple. Adam had a purpose already. He was made for her and to protect her. It was Eve who thirsted for danger, who looked beyond those garden walls and wondered if she could find her purpose there. 

And even after the apple, even after the end of Eden, when Eve smelled the truth in Adam and Adam smelled the truth in Eve, forever after, she was punished because even knowing all that there was in the world did not change the fact that Adam was still there at her side, her protector and her jailer, made from her, for her, as a hedge against the longing she would always feel but would never see satisfied.

Steve was protector, not protected. He lived his life by the rules and by the purposes he felt God gave him. He could only be happy with a purpose and he saw it now: Bucky was his purpose. Bucky was his Eve.

Steve imagined Bucky’s eyes glazed with pain and desire, the way he’d seen omega damsels look on the covers of a few dime novels and the poster that Phyllis kept under her bed and charged the alpha kids two cents just to see. She let Steve look for free, so by now he’d seen it enough that he couldn’t probably draw his own copy. He’d draw his own copy with Bucky’s face.

And maybe some day, not any day soon, Steve could see Bucky’s babyfaced features soften even more and his belly grow round with a child. The mechanics of such an act were still a little unclear to Steve, despite the many torturous sessions on the mysteries of differentiation delivered awkwardly by Brother Charles. Still, Steve imagined how proud he would be to stand next to Bucky in a simple marriage ceremony, to hold him in a protective embrace after having bred him, and to kiss him everyday the way he longed to kiss him now.

Steve felt a sudden elbow to the side. Bucky was looking at him quizzically. “Hey, jerkface, you’re going to miss the first pitch.”

Steve leaned against his friend, entangling one of Bucky’s arms in his. If Bucky thought it was strange, he didn’t let on, shouting as he was at the Cub’s lead-off batter along with the rest of the fans.

That was the day that Steve would always remember as the day he fell in love. It was an innocent, pure love that Steve would long for the rest of his life.


	8. Defeat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Bucky gets ready to depart for West Point, hopefully with an omega on his arm, he finds out what happened to Mary Anne.

Bucky couldn’t keep the smile off his face as he practically danced down Broadway on his way to Park Avenue. He’d cut through the park, maybe even buy a bag of breadcrumbs to feed the ducks and spread around his good cheer. Today, he was picking up his appointment letter to West Point.

It had taken a year of hard work, between physical training, adjusting to a new school and an even more rigorous curriculum and being forced to actually make friends. It wasn’t that Bucky wasn’t a friendly guy. Most people considered him charming and he certainly wasn’t offensive in any way. But he’d always found that being around most people was a delicate performance, one that required focus and dedication. Despite the fact that he was pretty much never alone -- at the orphanage, at work, watching the children for Colonel Phillips and Jack -- Bucky still hadn’t picked up the same ease with people that he saw in Steve. 

But, beyond all odds, Bucky did have friends. He played baseball and was an unexpected star at gymnastics and even attempted football, though he wasn’t the bulkiest of alphas. Most of the students at his new school were the children of military men or government officials, including the children of diplomats from a few of the foreign embassies located in the city. They knew that he was adopted and that one of his adoptive fathers was a negro, but once he learned to simply not speak of his family background, the others mostly left him alone about it. He wasn’t the most popular kid, but with Colonel Phillips and Jack forcing him to spend time socializing, he found a group that would invite him to family parties or beg him to show them around the seedy dockside clubs he used to explore with Pablo. 

Steve still had not submitted to attend any of Bucky’s formal dances and the newspaper kept him busy, but he did tag along often enough that Bucky’s friends didn’t think he’d imagined the omega he was courting. Bucky and Steve still hadn’t done anything but kiss, but Bucky attributed that to the lack of opportunity now that he lived in a family home and not alpha housing. 

Of course, that would all change soon. Once his appointment letter had been signed and mailed off to the academy, Bucky planned to ask Steve to marry him. As a mated omega, Steve would be able to move out of the orphanage and into the omega housing on the academy grounds. They wouldn’t be able to see each other every day, but Steve would have a shared room (unlesshe got pregnant, when he’d have his own apartment) and free meals at the mess and other omegas to socialize with.

Bucky turned down the lane and into the park, tipping his hat at a group of pretty omegas as they walked past. He’d soon be a married man, but that didn’t mean he was blind. They tittered and waved, but kept on walking. Towards the center of the park, near the lake, the newspaper boy stood, frail like Steve, but from lack of nutrition, not illness. He waived a paper, shouting out the headlines as though there was something exciting about this regular old Monday. Bucky tossed a nickel at the kid, who caught it in his cap. Bucky ignored the front page, vowing to read it later, though he often didn’t. Only Jack read the whole thing and that was only because Nicky insisted on it. Bucky flipped straight to the comics, to find out what was going on with Bullseye and the Defender. Turns out that the Defender was pursuing yet another romance, this time with a journalist who was perilously close to finding out his secret identity. Bucky rolled his eyes, wondering why the Defender got romance after failed romance, but Bullseye’s love life remained a mystery.

As Bucky exited the park he spared a moment to wonder what was behind this strange procedure. Usually, a member of congress would send the appointment letter to the academy and only send a notice to the appointee, but for some reason, Senator Brandt had requested that Bucky stop by to receive his appointment in person and then post it himself. It wasn’t any trouble, considering that Bucky’s new school was only a few blocks uptown and across the park. Colonel Phillips assured him that Senator Brandt was too close to the colonel’s program to pull some last minute trick on Bucky, but it still made him a little nervous. He’d met the senator once when he dropped by the base for an inspection and Bucky had become accustomed to the habits of the powerful from the parents of his classmates, but Bucky was never at ease when he had to socialize above his stature. Even though he was becoming something better, a part of him was still just a kid from a Brooklyn orphanage, and that kid felt like a fake. He soothed himself by remembering that the rich and powerful could afford eccentricities and if it meant being able to provide for Steve, he could indulge whatever eccentricity meant that he’d be calling on the Senator at his home.

The Senator lived in the penthouse of a beautiful gray building, whose immaculate lobby was just as formidable as the stone gargoyles that frowned down from their perch buttressing its roof. When Bucky spoke to the doorperson he half expected to be turned away, but instead she smiled and informed him that the Senator was in Washington, but his wife would be expecting Bucky.

Bucky frowned, wondering why he needed to show up personally if the Senator wasn’t even in town. But it wasn’t his place to question, so he settled for tapping the exceedingly heavy lion-shaped knocker and waiting patiently for Mrs. Brandt to attend to him.

It was a maid that opened the door, leading him silently through a gorgeous living-room decorated with antique furniture, down a long hallway, through the master bedroom to an antechamber leading into the master bathroom.

Bucky stood there, confused until the maid nudged him, a patronizing smile on his handsome face. “Go on. She is waiting for you.”

Bucky opened the indicated door hesitantly, noticing immediately that he had not yet reached the shower area but was now in the hers section of a his and hers dressing area, where a woman sat before a large gold-embellished mirror. Mrs. Brandt was in a high-backed velvet upholstered chair facing the mirror as she brushed a mane of blonde curls. As soon as her eyes met his in the mirror, Bucky recognized her.

“Mary Anne?” he asked, shocked beyond belief.

She set her silver brush down calmly, without any of the calculated cuteness learned at the charm school. “James.”

“You married a Senator?” That was certainly in keeping with Mr. Patterson’s ambitions, but Bucky hadn’t imagined he’d achieve such heights. 

“I did,” she replied cooly. “Of course, you might have known this if you had kept in touch.”

Bucky had no idea how he was supposed to keep in touch when her father tossed him out on his ass and forbade him to return. Mr. Patterson had accused him of wanting to stir up the workers even worse than the changes that he pinned on a desire to indulge his daughter, not the good business sense behind them. Of course, Bucky could have written. Mr. Patterson was mad enough at the “ungrateful urchin” that he might not have let the letter reach Mary Anne, even if he sent them through Bonnie. But, Bucky hadn’t even tried. It was too painful, knowing what his rejection would cost Mary Anne. He hadn’t been sure he could handle the details of it. 

“I’m so sorry,” was all he could think to say. “I’m sorry for everything.”

“You said.” He’d held her hands in the crummy streets outside the factory, looked into her hopeful blue eyes, stared at her, a vision in red, and told her that he would choose someone else and doom her to a fate she didn’t deserve.

“Well,” he gestured to the opulent dressing room in the opulent apartment owned by a _senator_ , “you’ve done well for yourself.”

Mary Anne snorted inelegantly. “I’ve traded cages, you mean. Father sold the factory. He sold _me_.” An omega couldn’t be sold any longer, of course. But he or she could be taken to a heat auction. Potential suitors paid thousands of dollars for a seat and prospective omegas looking for a mate would be displayed at the beginning of their heat. The suitors could court the omega in any way they saw fit - money, jewels, dominance displays, seduction, but all the omegas would mate with an alpha from the pool of suitors by the end of their heat and the omega’s family would earn a share of the ticket price in addition to any courting gifts offered to the family.

“He didn’t want that for you!” Bucky protested.

“He didn’t prefer that for me, but you were the plan and you walked away. My father is a pragmatist. He did the next best thing.”

Bucky already had an omega, but the alpha in him was aflame with hatred for his former employer, cursing the world on behalf of a girl he could have loved. “He had no right to do that to you! He could have just let you run the factory!”

Mary Anne shook her head, her gaze locked on Bucky through the mirror. “He couldn’t. That’s the thing about the nouveau riche, or so my husband tells me: they are pathological about appearances, even if it means letting their daughter lose her virginity to a man over twice her age who she’s never met.”

“At least you chose him.”

“I chose the Senator, but a choice between beasts is still a beast.” Even her bitterness could not turn her full lips and rosy cheeks ugly. After a long moment she sighed. “But what is done is done. At least one of us has his happy ending.”

She braced her delicate hands on the sides of her chair, pushing herself to her feet unsteadily. Only now did Bucky notice how her jawline had softened and her chest grown heavy. She braced one hand on a massively swollen belly and extended the other for Bucky to tentatively kiss. 

She was wearing a cream-colored silk dressing gown, fastened beneath her full breasts. It was daring for an omega to appear before an alpha other than her mate this way, but neither Mary Anne nor her maid seemed concerned about the impropriety of it. Based on what Bucky had observed with Jack, Mary Anne looked to be at least eight months gone into pregnancy. She chuckled at his wide-mouthed surprise. “The Senator may be a boring old man, but his equipment still runs well enough to stuff an omega full on the first go round.”

Bucky took a step back from her, horrified as she advanced on him, physical evidence of his failure to save her. She was still beautiful, but the light in her eyes was replaced with bitterness and her smile was as cruel as it once was innocent. She would hate to think of how Bucky saw her as tarnished, as though being unmarried had once made her pure. Except her pureness came from generosity of spirit and hope for the future, not from naivety. Bucky had loved her for those traits, because they reminded him of Steve, but he had chosen Steve over her beauty and her wealth as convenience for a reason. 

She did not have Steve strength. For all that she had claimed to be battered by the way the world treated omegas, her mettle had never truly been tested, not the way poverty could. Mary Anne had been shielded from deprivation and any toughness she learned came after she differentiated. Perhaps it came when she was already too old for the strength to run deep. Even though he knew he had picked the person he loved more, he knew at once that he didn’t pick the person who had _needed_ him the most. Steve would have been hurt, but he would never have broken. The wild grief in Mary Anne’s eyes said that she had done just that.

“I’m sorry, Mary Anne. I didn’t mean--” he pleaded.

“Nonsense,” she snapped. “You made a choice. You meant it when you picked him over me.” She hadn’t cried when he told her. She pulled him against her bosom, filling the air with the pheromone stink of an omega in distress, but she hadn’t let herself cry. Bucky had hated the tears that had come to his own eyes as he begged her to forgive him his choice and hated that she was the one comforting him, but now he realized what had really happened: she didn’t think that she _had the right_ to be upset.

“Just because I picked Steve doesn’t mean that I wanted this,” he gestured to her stomach, to the gold leaf mirror and the elegant chair and the rich world around them, “for you.”

Her eyes flashed, but she quickly schooled her features to blankness. It was good breeding, he realized. Her time with Bucky had been a brief holiday from it, but he was no longer someone she would share her true self with. “What did you think was going to happen?”

Bucky shrugged. He had known that he would be abandoning Mary Anne to another life - that he could only save one of them, but he hadn’t dared imagine the specifics of it. He was weak in that way. 

“Of course you didn’t think,” she sighed. “You’re an alpha.”

Bucky wanted to protest. He was the most omega-like alpha most of his friends knew and he’d always sympathized with Steve and with Mary Anne. He wasn’t like the Senator she married or like her father or the other alphas at his school and at Rockafeller’s. But the defeated look on her face stopped him in his tracks. If she believed he couldn’t understand her, his assertion to the contrary wouldn’t change a thing.

“You grew up an orphan, but even with the odds against you, you’ve always had _opportunity_. If not my father’s factory, then the army. If not Steve, then you would have married me. If not Harvard, then the academy. You were my one opportunity, Bucky. We omegas get _one_ , if we’re lucky.”

“You still have it!” Bucky protested, because Mary Anne had no idea what it was to be poor and to claw at the unforgiving world until you bled raw for that little sliver of hope. She had no idea what it meant to go hungry or to spend your last dime or to have to leave your omega to dance with old men who would paw at him and try their damndest to lead him astray. “You’re married to a _Senator_. How many would kill for this life?”

“And yet you apologize to me,” Mary Anne snapped. “You look at me with pity for bringing a new life into this world.” She cupped the swell of her stomach. “It’s more than you’ll ever do, aspiring to be a killer and living with that toothpick of an omega. You’ll be lucky if he can survive a heat, let alone give you a child. I would have been good to you, but you made your choice.” She lumbered over to the dressing table and the simple cream-colored envelope that rested upon it. She lifted it to her lips, a pensive, haughty expression on her features. 

“Mary Anne,” Bucky couldn’t help the tremble in his voice. That must be his appointment letter. She held his fate in her hand. Bucky had learned enough from the plays and novels he was made to read in school to know what trouble could be wrought by an omega scorned. He never would have believed it of friendly, clever Mary Anne who shed tears for the workers and thirsted for hope the way a desert blossom thirsts for water. 

Her soft rose-colored lips pulled up into a malicious grin. “I have you by the knot,” she whispered, not acknowledging the vulgarity of the phrase. Bucky had never wondered what would become of Mary Anne’s clever, alpha-like ambition if she ever happened to forget about her social justice crusade. Now he had an inkling.

She tapped the corner of the letter against her lips, her eyes locked with his. Lipstick caught on the corner of the pure white paper, tarnishing it like a bloodstain. 

Bucky gaped. Long forgotten was his triumphant mood from earlier. That would show him for counting his blessings before they hatched.

After a long pause, she tossed her head back, blonde curls bouncing with a deep throaty laugh - her true laugh that he had missed this past year. “You really thought I’d do it.”

Bucky didn’t find it funny, but he laughed with her, still eyeing the letter. Maybe in her eyes this was all still a lark, but she was right in that even if she wasn’t the love of his life, he hadn’t been a good friend to her by leaving her alone this past, difficult year. And she was right that in this moment she had all the power of the wife of a Senator and he was put in his place as the orphan boy who had none. It was impossible to tell if it was intentional or just another one of those things that rich people did and Bucky didn’t understand.

“Oh, Bucky,” she sighed, leaning in to embrace him. Her gravid belly pressed up and in, forcing him to curve his spine uncomfortably to truly hold her. “I should hate you, but, god help me, I can’t.” Bucky felt a strange sensation, a push of his flesh through hers. “Oh,” she giggled, pulling away and grabbing one of his hands to press to her bulge. “She’s kicking.”

Bucky had felt Jack’s bump before, at Jack’s insistence and not due to his own curiosity. Mary Anne had the same, knowing, secretive smile, despite how much she’d railed against even the possibility of children this early. 

“How do you know it’s a she?” Bucky asked to keep the silence from becoming awkward.

“It’s just a feeling. Or perhaps it’s just wishful thinking. A female alpha.” She smiled. Mary Anne would hope that her child would have everything she herself had wanted. “Tell me one thing.”

Bucky nodded.

“Could we have been happy together?”

“Yes,” Bucky whispered - the confession he’d never made to Steve. “If Steve wasn’t in the picture, we could have been very happy.”

“But you wouldn’t have ever been happy if you had given him up?”

Bucky nodded and Mary Anne nodded back decisively. She handed him his letter. “I was to see this mailed, but I told William not to. I was the one who invited you here. My husband doesn’t even know that we’ve met. He doesn’t know much about me.”

Bucky gulped. He knew that most high-class marriages were more like business arrangements than love affairs. In fact, a heat auction like Mary Anne’s _was_ a business deal, contract and all. “Then he doesn’t know what he’s missing.” His voice wobbled, not because he was lacking conviction but because he simmered with hatred for the man who would _waste_ everything Mary Anne had to offer because he only wanted a young omega capable of breeding his legacy. 

“That is the good part. He’s rarely home and when he is, he’s pleasant enough company. We haven’t even had an outside-of-heat mating since I started to show. He has other lovers: I can smell them on him sometimes. I like that he doesn’t feel the need to clean their scent off. It’s honest.”

Bucky clenched his fists, unsure how Mary Anne tolerated other omegas rubbing their scents all over her husband. But he supposed that such levels of possessiveness were a purely alpha trait. “So you’re happy?”

“Not by a long shot. But the Senator is not a bad man. I’d even hazard to say I like him.”

Bucky nodded, not really knowing what else he could say that wouldn’t sound like pity. Mary Anne was entitled to whatever comforts she could find in her situation.

Bucky helped Mary Anne out into the living room, where they chatted about the more mundane things in their lives. Mary Anne followed the Adventures of the Defender and Bullseye and was impressed to learn that Steve was the man behind it. Bucky didn’t follow politics or read the society pages, but he was happy to learn that Senator Brandt had supported a labor bill at Mary Anne’s behest and that Mary Anne was becoming more popular with a group of socialites that could help her set up a charity program for omega factory workers. Ironically, she was now doing much more to improve the lives of the Patterson Factory workers than she ever could have done as a factory manager. 

As the afternoon drew to a close, Bucky found himself regretful that he would have to leave. He had missed his friend dearly in the past year and even though he hadn’t yet found a way to fully ignore her large belly and her unfortunate situation, he managed to not look at her with pity or obvious regret. At least he thought he did.

***

Bucky put on his best suit, a faded grey number that didn’t particularly flatter him but was free of rips and stains. As a graduation gift, Colonel Phillips had a formal uniform tailored for him, but he had also forbidden Bucky to wear it until his first formal dress day at the academy. So today, he dressed up his old suit by slicking back his hair and washing really well, even behind his ears. Steve had seen him filthy and hurting and even drunkenly vomiting before so he doubted there was much Bucky could do to impress him, but there were some traditions that were important and when they were telling the story of their engagement to their children one day, Bucky didn’t want it to be about him asking Steve sitting on the floor with a mouthful of pizza.

He fingered the soft material of the ring box in his pocket, resisting the urge to open it and finger the simple silver band inside. It was all Bucky could afford and even then he had needed to borrow some money from Jack (behind the Colonel’s back). 

Bucky had wanted to ask Steve as soon as he received his appointment letter, but despite the fact that he had left the apartment on friendly terms, Mary Anne’s involvement made him hesitate celebrating until after the Academy itself had mailed him the invitation to attend.

When he showed up at the door to Our Lady of Mercy, Mother Maria was in the atrium and she scowled at him. Even though he’d been adopted and was going to West Point within a month, she still saw him as the rulebreaker who had almost stolen Steve’s virginity all those years ago. 

Steve smiled when Bucky showed up, wolf whistling playfully. “You look dapper today, Buck.”

Bucky couldn’t help but smile back, noticing that Steve had also opted for his best suit. It didn’t matter that it was clearly a children’s size and even then the shoulders were baggy and the pants sagged. “You don’t look so bad yourself.”

“Well, this is a night for celebration.” Steve had heard all about Bucky’s acceptance from Colonel Phillips and Jack, who couldn’t be prouder if Bucky were their own son. And Steve was beaming. In fact, he had been the one to ask Bucky out to dinner today. Even though it wasn’t his own idea, Bucky couldn’t pass up the perfect opportunity to finally ask Steve the question that he’d practically been burning with since the day Steve differentiated. 

There was excitement in the air as they left the orphanage. Sister Madeleine had been waiting eagerly at the door in order to congratulate him with a strong hug and assurances that she’d always known that he would make something of himself. Even Brother Franklin, whom Bucky had never gotten along with, patted Bucky on the back and gave him a genuine smile. Brother Charles bumbled and dithered but eventually presented Bucky with a pendant of Joan of Arc, who was the patron saint of the American military. Bucky didn’t have the heart to tell Brother Charles that he didn’t believe in such things. The children, most of whom Bucky didn’t know, having left Our Lady of Mercy three years ago, were also excited. If Steve didn’t know that today he would be receiving a marriage proposal, then the other omegas at the orphanage certainly did, staring at Bucky with fascination and longing. 

It was Steve that dragged Bucky out of the crowd and down the steps toward the subway station. His hand was warm and clammy in Bucky’s and they shared a conspiratorial, sweet smile. They saw each other nearly every other day, but they both knew that tonight was special.

They had been unmated pair for a year now and their scents had already begun to mingle, despite never having consummated their relationship. Bucky was sharing a room with Nicky, while Evan and Ella shared the other room and the newborn baby Marvin staying in a crib in his parent’s bedroom; it left little opportunity for a deepening of their relationship. Colonel Phillips allowed Bucky the space to scentmark Steve before the omega socials that he was still forced to attend, but despite his racial activism, the Colonel was a Southern gentleman at heart, with very distinct beliefs about proper behavior between young unmated pairs. If Colonel Phillips were his biological father, Bucky had no doubt that he would have tried to rebel long ago, but his gratitude overcame even the considerable temptation of finally having Steve after so many years of wanting.

Steve took Bucky to the same restaurant they’d eaten at more than a year ago, the day that Steve took the promotion to cartoonist. Bucky didn’t know if it was sentiment or the fact that the newspaper had a standing discount rate at the place, but he appreciated the symmetry. 

Even though they were both blushing shyly through most of the meal, they managed to make easy conversation as always. Bucky speculated about what his adoptive parents would do for childcare once he left the house, especially considering that Marvin had been a rare extra-heat conception that had caught them all flat-footed so soon after the birth of their last. Steve told Bucky about a new comic idea he had about a team of superheroes all working together and how he thought he might even be able to convince Mr. Levinson to invest in a magazine-format printing.

Bucky smiled encouragingly, but in reality he was only half listening, too busy fumbling the small box he had hidden under the table. Finally, as they finished with their steaks and Bucky downed the rest of a glass of wine for courage, he was ready to discuss the elephant in the room. 

“So I’m moving out in two weeks,” he said.

“So soon?” Steve looked disappointed, frowning. “I thought universities didn’t start until September.”

“We have summer physical training,” Bucky pointed out. “No coursework. It’s just the same strength and agility exercises that they put the enlisted alphas through. The colonel says it’s mostly to break the spirit of the arrogant ones and weed people out who can’t handle themselves in battle. Aunt Milly is going to take the kids while the Colonel and Jack drive me up there.”

“I’ll see if I can get time off of work to come with you. I’d love to see where they’re going to be putting you through your paces for the next four years.”

Bucky grinned. “I’d like that. Of course, omega housing doesn’t open until September, but it would be nice if you could--” Bucky caught himself too late. Steve’s fork was frozen halfway to his mouth, his eyes as wide as saucers. “Damn me,” Bucky cursed. “I’m no good at this.” He gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Talk about putting the cart before the horse.”

Steve looked absolutely beautiful in candlelight. He was still small and his clothes ill-fitting, but his pale skin was flushed with wine and happiness and the light danced off of his hair like sunset on a golden pond. Bucky wanted to kiss him then and there, but instead he lowered himself to one knee, shaking with anticipation. He pulled the small jeweler’s box from his pocket and opened it for Steve.

“I’m sorry I cocked this up, but: Steven G. Rogers, will you marry me?”

Steve’s bug-eyed look hadn’t eased in intensity. He looked paralyzed, like Bucky had just grown a second head, not done the thing they’d been headed towards for the past year. His only movement in a full minute was to pick the napkin on his lap and daub a smudge of invisible sauce from his lips. His hands trembled as though his napkin weighed tons, not ounces. 

“Come on, Steve,” Bucky tried to laugh, ignoring the choking, stuck feeling at the back of his throat. “You’re making me a little nervous here, sweetheart.”

Steve dropped his napkin back into his lip, where it slid to the floor. He didn’t retrieve it, forcing Bucky to break his pose to grab the thing and put it back on Steve’s lap just in order to have something to do that wasn’t kneeling holding out a ring like a fool.

“Steve, say something,” Bucky begged, looking around at the stares they were now getting from the other patrons. 

Steve reached out a shaky hand for the ring box. He held it far away from his chest as he examined it, as though it were a dangerous object that might burn him if held too close. “Bucky, how could you afford--”

“Damnit, Steve, I’m asking you to marry me and all you can think to say is that you think a dinky band without even a diamond is out of my price range!” It came out a harsh whisper.

Steve shut the box with a gulp, placing it on the table and reaching out for Bucky’s hands this time, pulling him up and into his side of the little booth they had been seated at. At least it obscured Bucky from the judgemental stares of _some_ of the patrons. 

“I’m sorry, Bucky, that was insensitive,” Steve acknowledged. He squeezed Bucky’s hands in his. It reminded Bucky painfully of the way he’d held Mary Anne’s hands all that time ago when he told her his final choice. 

“Steve,” Bucky whined, giving up all pretense of dignity. His vision was beginning to blur from tears but he managed to choke back the sob. “Put on the ring. Please. If you think it’s too much, we can take it back in the morning. I can get you a copper one that will stain your finger or carved stone or wood. You don’t have to wear a ring if you don’t want to. Just say ‘yes,’ Steve. Say you’ll be my mate.”

Steve had tears in his eye too, but unlike Bucky, he didn’t seem to care that he was now openly weeping. “I can’t, Bucky.”

“Why not? We’ve been together a year now, much longer than that if you count from our first kiss. Where is this going if not marriage?”

Steve’s grief had gone sloppy and he wiped his nose harshly on his napkin. “I love you, Bucky,” he said. “I love you so much. But I can’t leave the city and live in special housing with the rest of the military spouses. I have a life here. I have a career and Brother Charles counts on me for the books and I’m going to print my own comic book, be my own man.”

“I don’t want to own you, Steve,” Bucky protested. “You know me. I’m not _like_ that. I just want us to be together. Is that too much to ask? After all I’ve given up for you?”

“I never asked for you to give anything up for me! I told you to take any other chance at happiness. I tried to warn you, Bucky. I’m no good. I can’t be what you want.”

“Why not?” Bucky demanded, getting angry now. “I’m offering you a good life. Look at Jack. He’s an omega who still has a career and he’s happy. I can provide for you. I’ve made something for myself. We don’t have to live like orphans anymore.”

Steve looked pained. “I know. I’m so incredibly proud of you, Bucky. But I don’t need you to provide for me. I’ve made something for myself too and I won’t give that up.”

“So what have we been doing this past year?” Bucky shouted. “I took this deal so that we could be together. If you never had any intention of marrying me, you should have said something! You knew this whole time that I would be leaving for the academy. You could have told me you had no intention of coming with me.”

“I’m sorry. I was selfish. I thought that maybe things would work out. If I just kept trying, then maybe I could find a way to be what you want.”

“Jesus,” Bucky breathed, feeling claustrophobic all of a sudden. What had he done? “I gave it all up,” he realized. “I gave it all up for you.” He wasn’t even really talking to Steve anymore. He’d forgotten that he never meant for Steve to hear any of this. “I could be mated, heir to the factory, on my way to Harvard right now.”

“What are you talking about?” Steve looked anguished. In fact, he looked downright terrified. “What do you mean? The factory?”

“I didn’t move in with the Phillipses because you convinced them that the factory was too dangerous. I mean, the army’s not exactly safer, is it? I got kicked out of the factory.”

Steve looked absolutely distraught. “You lied?”

Bucky snorted. He’d always be a liar and a cheat. Steve had fixed some of it, because Bucky hated to see that look of disappointment, but it couldn’t change was Bucky was underneath it all - he was a survivor at all costs. He was a man who would fight for what he wanted and would fight dirty if he needed to. “Mr. Patterson threw me out on my ass because he wanted me to marry his daughter so that we could take over the factory together. He was even willing to send me to Harvard for four years in order to sweeten the deal.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Steve pleaded, forcing hopefulness the way he so often did. “It doesn’t matter because you didn’t think you could be happy with Mary Anne, right Bucky?”

Bucky looked away. He couldn’t stand to see Steve teetering on the abyss of guilt like that. Steve hadn’t made and promises. He’d told Bucky to go with Mary Anne, but of course Bucky had been too bull-headed to listen. He could tell Steve that of course he wouldn’t have been able to be happy with Mary Anne - that it was a deal he would never take, but the anger bubbled in him. The injustice rankled - Bucky had given up the job he wanted and the education he wanted and Steve wasn’t even grateful. He threw Bucky’s devotion back in his face and now Mary Anne was mated to a Senator who neither loved or respected her and Bucky was going to college to learn how to be a killer when he could have been content running a factory. 

Bucky would give all that for Steve, even knowing that Steve wasn’t exactly _normal_ and all he wanted in return was for Steve to _be_ with him. How could Steve dare to look so damned disappointed when it was Steve who stood in the way of their happiness, not Bucky? “I guess I lied about that, too.”

Steve gaped. “But why?”

“Because I’m in love with you, you idiot! I’m so head-over-heels, foolishly, _stupidly_ in love that I’d give up almost perfect for even the slightest possibility that you might love me back.”

Love was supposed to be a gift. Life was tough and Bucky didn’t believe in a higher power, but he believed that love was good and love was important and even if it didn’t conquer all, it was a force powerful enough to keep a man warm at night. But maybe he was wrong and love was just another kind of misery in the miserable march of existence. Maybe it was the most damning misery of them all. 

“I warned you,” Steve whispered, righteous now. “I told you I was no good as an omega. I told you to choose her. Maybe it’s not too late, maybe if you--”

Bucky shook his head. “She’s married to Senator Brandt. She just gave birth to a baby boy. She’s trapped, like I am.”

“Why couldn’t you have listened?” Steve begged. “I didn’t ask for you to--”

Bucky sighed. “No you didn’t. But I don’t understand why you won’t marry me! You don’t have to come live with me right away. With my pay, we can afford a place for you to stay in the city. Once I’ve graduated, they’ll transfer me, but if it’s not in New York, then there are bases in other cities that will need cartoonists for their newspapers. Or maybe you’ll have built up your career enough that you can send your drawings by mail. It’s not that far up to West Point. We might miss some of your heats together, but we can make it work. You said that there’s no one else. If there’s no one else, why not marry me?”

Steve sighed. For a moment it looked as though Bucky might get an explanation, but in the end Steve looked down at his clasped hands and whispered. “I can’t, Bucky. I’m sorry.”

The anger boiled up and boiled over. Bucky never thought he’d feel this way towards Steve. Steve was always honorable. He would never betray anyone, let alone Bucky. But here they were and Bucky sure as hell _felt_ betrayed. 

“So you’re not going to explain yourself?”

Steve shook his head, looking guilty.

“This is it. There’s no convincing you?”

Steve shook his head again. They stared at each other for a long moment. There was pain etched deep into Steve’s features. This was hurting him as much as it was hurting Bucky and curse his instincts, but Bucky still felt bad for Steve even if Steve was the one hurting both of them. 

Bucky reached into his pocket for the wallet that Mr. Patterson had given him so long ago. He pulled out enough bills to cover their dinner and then stood. “Then I guess we’re over.”

Steve nodded, closing his eyes to squeeze the last of his tears out and down his flushed, tear-streaked face.

“Goodbye,” Bucky said, with finality. It was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do, including all of the torments of the factory and the day he’d run through flames to escape the burning of State Orphanage. But he forced himself to walk away, leaving Steve crying in the nicest restaurant they’d ever eaten in. 

Only later as he sat up rocking baby Marvin and wallowing in his own self-pity did he realize that he’d left the ring sitting there on the table.


End file.
